Originally Posted by
johnirvine
Maybe you haven't heard the latest news - Cyprus is now officially out of recession. Tourist numbers are up around 15% year to date, with increased Germans and Brits more than counterbalancing a large drop in Russians. The ATH-TXL flight is always full and this route is far more popular than flights to other German cities. The market from LCA to TXL is big enough to sustain a daily flight from Cyprus.
At present, A3 have 4 planes based at LCA. The number will probably be increased to 6 in the near future which is what CY were operating before their demise.
Originally Posted by
szczurwa
Flew TXL-ATH-LCA-ATH-TXL some days ago. Flights TXL-ATH-TXL were 70% full, LCA -ATH circa 50%, the only flight fully booked was ATH-LCA. Hotels in Larnaca were almost empty. Ticket price - 115 EUR I bought it 3 days before trip. Is it really means good business for A3 and boom for Cyprus ?
So here's the dichotomy - whilst Cyprus is out of recession, liquidity is still a massive issue so people probably aren't spending enormous sums of money. That's hardly unusual - here in the UK we've been recession free for some years and have an economy that's growing at a sensible rate, but most of the time it doesn't feel like that!
Maybe there's enough traffic ex-Germany to support routes, but much may depend on LH's plans - the pull of travelling on a 'home' airline is strong so A3 would lose out.
Equally, whilst there may have been other reasons, CY couldn't survive using its route network, so A3 is not going to want to replicate everything.
A3 expansion recently has been on a slowly but surely basis, and that's worked. No reason to believe that whatever they do it'll be well thought through.