This is what Transport Minister Yiannis Karousos said in an address marking World Tourism Day on Tuesday.

“Looking on the bright side, we all expect 2023 to be the year that both passenger numbers and sales return to pre-Covid-19 levels,” the Minister also said.

Specifically, passenger traffic at Larnaca and Paphos airports in 2020 and 2021 amounted to 2,312,697 and 5,109,478 million, respectively.

This marks an overall decrease of 79% and 55% compared to 2019 – a record year for tourism in Cyprus.

By August 2022, Cyprus had a total of 5,922,590 passengers passing through its airports while the year is expected to close at the traffic levels of 2016.

Karousos then referred to policies and actions taken by the government in the recent past in order to achieve the rise in connectivity and the sector’s protection.

“An important change is the liberalization of ground services in airports (Ground Handling). This specific initiative resulted in the reduction of costs of these services for airlines as well as for the expansion of the fleet of many,” he added.

Source: In-Cyprus