“Yes, there are interested investors, and this is what the national carrier urgently needs to survive. But there is nothing final yet, and we hope the announcement will yield positive results,” he added.
He said without an investor coming in Cyprus Airways was doomed. The announcement in English only in the daily press said CA and the government – as the main shareholders of the airline – announced the sale of the company. And they invited investors to express their interest in acquiring shares or a bundle of assets with the deadline being Wednesday, July 23.
At the same time, political parties expressed concern over the ‘bargain price’ CA could be sold at; with the Greens warning that the future of the carrier is precarious at best. “We had no doubt that the national carrier was heading for a sell off, we had expressed our deep concern… one may wonder why the carrier’s survival restructuring plan drafted by Air France and KLM has not been fully implemented before the sell off?,” the party said in a written statement yesterday. “The future of the national carrier is bleak, one way or another,” it added.
Socialist EDEK went a step further saying the need for a strategic investor was clear but so is the need for the national carrier to remain just that.
Nonetheless, the board, pilots and unions of the bankrupt company agreed that the decision by the government to act decisively could yield positive results.
It was a step in the right direction, Cyprus Airways chairman Tony Antoniou repeated in view of the fact that the European Commission could turn down the carrier’s last restructuring plan in the autumn. And that means its imminent closure, because CA would have to pay back €80 million in state subsidies it received in recent years.
Antoniou also clarified that the precondition set before possible investors is that CA should be able to fly from Cyprus.
The sale announcement could be interpreted as a sign that CA have already managed to attract a serious strategic investor. The government owns 93.6% of CA’s share capital and the remaining 6.33% is in the hands of private investors.
Source: InCyprus
