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Travel chief says proposed charges would price Cyprus out of the region.
The International Air Carriers Association (IACA) yesterday accused the government of using tourists to pre-finance the island’s two new airports through unprecedented passenger fees. IACA chairman Roland Taylor, who was on the island for a meeting with Transport Minister Harris Thrassou told a news conference in Nicosia the new rates would make airport charges in Cyprus 50-110 per cent more than other countries in the region.
The first set of new charges came into effect on April 1, and amounted to 47 per cent. By November charges per passenger will have risen 77 per cent to 32 euros.
"Families will be paying 50-60 euros more to fly to Cyprus. It makes a big difference," said Taylor. "We can’t understand why it’s necessary and we still don’t know why costs are higher than new airports in Turkey and Egypt and we have not had a satisfactory answer."
Taylor said the meeting with Thrassou and representatives of the airport operator Hermes, had not been edifying. "We have still not been given any explanation as to why the costs have to be so high. We are convinced it will damage tourism. This is the start of the problem, not the end."
The new airports will not be ready until 2008 and 2009.
IACA, which represents 160 airlines, believes the root of the problem is the 33 per cent return the government receives from Hermes as part of the deal. Taylor said they didn’t know of any other airports that had such an "excessively high" concession fee.
Luc Geens, IACA manager of ground operations said with the 2008 passenger projections the 223 million euros would be taken in by Hermes in passenger taxes. From this the Cyprus government will receive 73.6 million euros.
He said that despite a lower quality of service, Cyprus was 100 per cent more expensive than Morocco and at least 30 per cent more expensive than Spain, Turkey and Greece per passenger. IACA estimates that the problem will become apparent in 2007 and that Thrassou had told them if things develop negatively, there might be room for a re-evaluation.
"We believe it will go wrong in 2007," said Taylor.
Geens added: "We would like to come back here in another year and say we ere wrong. The question is, will this happen? Even with the new airports our benchmarks are still valid unless they are luxury palaces."
IACA is convinced that passenger and airlines will turn to other tourist destinations offering better value for money but said the government and Hermes are totally unwilling to budge.
Taylor said there was nothing else IACA could do and that ultimately the market would decide.
"We consider this to be the last attempt to reach a compromise," he said. | 
