The Minister of Transport, Communications and Works, Giannis Karousos, appealed to all those active in tourism to be vaccinated, adding that the sooner vaccinations increase, the sooner Cyprus will enter the "green" category and air transport will open.
In his statements to the Savior, the Minister was asked about the issue of the green certificate and replied that "we have been implementing it for many months through CyprusFlightPass. It is known that any of the 65 countries from which we allow travel, can travel to Cyprus without any restrictions, as long as they are either vaccinated or have the appropriate laboratory tests depending on the classification of countries.
At the same time, he expressed satisfaction with the fact that "we are reaching an agreement on the green certificate, which Cyprus has been using for many months, which has given us some advantage in terms of tourism and the restoration of aviation and the connection of the country. "Our airports are ready to receive an increased number of tourists and passengers, while we have updated and made some changes to improve the flow of passengers at airports, while all their services are enhanced with more staff."
According to Mr. Karousos, "meetings are held every day and we see that in the planning of the companies there are flights to 115 destinations from 50 companies in 35 countries. In 2019, which was the best tourist season we have ever had, the total number of countries that made trips was 40 "he said and noted that the airlines have invested in the Cyprus protocol, while the fact that proper preparation was done has given the country an advantage. The protocols were announced very early, according to which there would be no restrictions from the specific countries.
He added that there are "flights and seats as well as new airlines and new routes such as Larnaca - Paris and Larnaca - Marseille. "There are also flights to Rome, Abu Dhabi and other destinations and we are optimistic that this year's tourist season will be better than last year."
According to the Minister of Transport "we can not predict any number of passengers, however there is a trend, there is optimism, the airlines are there, it is enough to further improve our epidemiological data, especially for the United Kingdom to characterize us, "Together with Russia, the Greens, which I hope will happen in the coming weeks, as we are doing extremely well."
Giannis Karousos called on "the world and especially those who are active in tourism to be vaccinated, because we know very well that the United Kingdom, great importance in the evaluation of the countries it does, has to do with the percentage of vaccinated population". "The more we improve and increase vaccinations, the sooner we will be labeled a 'green' country and air transport will open," he said.