State to pay for repatriation of Cobalt passengers (video of announcement)

[Paphos Life]

The state will cover the cost for the repatriation of passengers stranded either in Cyprus or elsewhere after Cobalt suspended operations, Transport Ministry permanent secretary Alecos Michaelides said on Thursday....

Read the article and chat about it below...

[mike strand2]

My husband is absolutely apoplectic about this!! Surely Cobalt must have IATA cover (or they'd not have been allowed to operate), so that will sort passengers out? Why should Cypriot tax payers sort out the mess of a badly run airline?!!

Completely agree

[Mike J]

Not sure where the idea that IATA will pay for passengers stranded by airline failure has come from but perhaps it is being confused with the UK ATOL licence which protects against tour operator failure ? The only monies IATA will or might refund are those made through an accredited IATA travel agent and only if that money is still in the " pipeline" in other words is still in the BSP system and has not been paid to the airline that has gone under.
Of passengers purchasing flight only tickets in other words not part of a package holiday between the year 2000 and 2010 some 76% had no form of protection against airline insolvency and that number obviously doesn't include all the passengers lucky enough or careful enough to have paid with a credit card issued by a UK bank which afforded them a refund of the ticket lost ( provided it was over £100 ) and reasonable repatriation costs. Various countries have schemes to try to protect against airline failure but most are fairly ineffective. So it its probably bravo to the Cyprus government in realising the potential damage to it's tourist industry in ensuring Cobalt passengers make it to their homes . One also presumes that as Cobalt also , somewhat confusingly, flew as Cyprus Airways on some routes the government felt an even greater need to show compassion. They also as Cobalt was a Cyprus based airline had obligations under various EU regulations to ensure that the airline was financially solvent by constant checking and should, if not satisfied, have revoked the airline's licence .

[jeba]

The government has explained it's repatriation offer as follows, which personally I'm supportive of. The government "wastes" (for want of a better word) far more money in other areas of it's dat to day operations.

What kind of reasoning is this? Just because they are wasteful anyway it doesn´t matter if they waste a bit more? Surely, it would be for the respective countries whose citizens those tourists are to help those (few) who can´t afford a return ticket? E. g. the German embassy would give you a loan for that purpose to German citizens - but you´d have to pay it back once you can afford it.

[WHL]

The government has explained it's repatriation offer as follows, which personally I'm supportive of. The government "wastes" (for want of a better word) far more money in other areas of it's dat to day operations.

What kind of reasoning is this? Just because they are wasteful anyway it doesn´t matter if they waste a bit more? Surely, it would be for the respective countries whose citizens those tourists are to help those (few) who can´t afford a return ticket? E. g. the German embassy would give you a loan for that purpose to German citizens - but you´d have to pay it back once you can afford it.

Whoop whoop for the German Embassy, Well done the Cyprus Government in my opinion, they took out the stress for a lot of tourists, great PR.

[Dominic]

Given the reliance of this country on the tourism sector I think this is a sensible gesture to make.

[WHL]

It is a good "short term" solution, available until the 24th I think...but I do hope that prior to providing the facility, other options have been discounted...refunds on cards etc, the Government do have a day of care here...for the money as well as the passengers!

My other half was due to fly out next week, we are claiming on the credit card, called bank and they told us what online form to fill in , we will see how we get on.