Perdios pointed out that positive developments may be expected in the coming weeks with regard to covering the losses from flights that no longer operate to and from Cyprus.

According to Perdios, this year is a more difficult one, noting that this was natural after three successive years of record arrivals.

“It is natural that there is a downswing especially during a period when competition with Turkey, Egypt, Tunis and Morocco keeps growing”, he said, adding however that there was no need to panic. “We continue working on reintroducing some of the flights that we lost over the last months. More news is expected in the next weeks.”

This, according to Perdios, would help to improve the situation in 2020. He said that Cyprus should target other sources of tourism than traditional markets such as the UK and Russia where the serious competition facing Cyprus was evident.

The Deputy Ministry, he noted, has taken every possible action to attract new airlines or new flights.