One of Russia’s largest air carriers, S7 Airlines (Siberia Airlines brand) is expected to submit an application to operate in Cyprus by next month. S7 considers entering the aviation market of Cyprus as a local carrier shareholder.
According to the Minister of Transport and Communications of Cyprus Marios Demetriades, there are other applications from other companies to be considered as well – Cobalt Air, Fly Orion. And one was already approved: in February Tus Airways will begin flights from Cyprus to Israel. According to the Minister, there is a current discussion of S7’s possible participation in the share of the Cyprus airlines.
At the same time,” the Russian low coaster “Pobeda” is going to begin flights to Cyprus in summer of 2016″ – said the head of the company Andrey Kalmykov. The carrier has already filed an application to the Federal Air Transport Agency on flights to Larnaca and Paphos. Kalmykov expressed the hope that the agency will allow the company to launch flights to Cyprus very soon.
Air traffic between Russia and Cyprus is maximally liberalized. At the end of 2015 the aeronautical authorities of the two countries agreed on a full lifting of restrictions on the number of designated carriers on scheduled flights, according to Rosaviation. The proposal to liberalize flights to Cyprus was received from the Russian side. In response, the Cypriot ministry also proposed the Ministry of Transport to allow European airlines to fly from Cyprus to Russia, as the air communication with the island is now slightly limited, since in the beginning of 2015 Cyprus Airways the national carrier filed for bankruptcy. The situation was also aggravated by the withdrawal of “Transaero” from the aviation market. Now Cypriot side is waiting for permission from the Russian authorities to start flights to the island of subsidiary “Aeroflot” – “Russia”.
According to the Transport Clearing House, in 2015 Russian airlines transported to Cyprus and back approximately 1.2 million passengers. Cyprus took ninth place among the most popular international destinations.