The land of Aphrodite and Adonis, Cyprus was a British colony until 1960 when it gained independence. Until the 1970s there was a risk of Cyprus being annexed by Greece or Turkey, but the intervention of US troops and the plebiscite of more than 97 % in favor of an independent Cyprus ended the question there and then.
Not many people know this, but the earliest site which has a confirmed record of human activity, is Aetokremnos, which is on the southern coast of Cyprus, dating back to inhabitations and settlements in 10,000 BC actually.
Where other independent nations were not able to have airlines of their own until quite late, specially countries the size of Cyprus, Cyprus itself was lucky enough to be a British colony, which resulted in formation of the flag bearer of the country, the cyprus airlines in 1947, as a joint venture of private industrialists and the colonial government.
Today the government owes some 70 % shares in the airline. The cyprus airways offer traveling options in economy aka Aphrodite class Y and business class aka Apollo class C. The frequent flyers are offered membership in Sun Miles. The difference between sun miles and other frequent flyer programs is that unlike silver gold and platinum, the Sun miles program has pragmatically divided its tiers into 4 parts, for the elite, for the premier, for the regular and for the students. No other european frequent flyer program offers a tier directed at the students specifically. This is the main reason why the airline is popular with the students. The cyprus airlines knows that today’s students are tomorrow’s elite.
The airline is also known for coming up with colorful summer packages each year. The club offers three types of member ship cards. The regular card offers a bonus of 5oo points as welcome gesture, the premier card offers 25 % addition bonus points, i.e. a total of 625 points, and the elite card offers a 50 % extra bonus, i.e. 750 points. Then there is access to the cyprus lounge as well, which is called the sunjet executive lounge. At present it is at paphos airport and the larnaca air port.
The vacation flights on cyprus airways offers non stop flying on the Air Bus with all sorts of deals for every class. The airline prepares a vacation brochure each year for all the popular destinations and mentions the hotels in partnerships, the deals offered there, rents, other privileges, benefits and specials in the hotels as well as site seeing spots at the destination as well as other germane information like the rental cars. There is loads of information on city specials for the children, play lands, libraries and shopping malls. The brochure of the cyprus airlines carries a small review on the popular restaurants of the city as well. That is something!
The destination guide of the cyprus airways that is offered aboard, mentions all the happenings in Cyprus, including festivals, sales, cyproit celebrations and lots of other events as well, celebrated in Cyprus. A number of flying deals with the airline calls for discount tickets to these events too.
Cyprus airlines is also one of the few airlines to publically endorse more than 3 travel arrangement groups, out of which travel total and travel cyprus are more popular. These groups arrange for stay at hotels in membership with the cyprus airlines .
Holiday Autos is a car rental company with affiliation with the cyprus airlines, that offers rental cars at more than 4000 locations world wide. There is of course special discount for the elite and the premium members. Another fact liked about the cyprus airways is that they don’t include any hidden extra charges or taxes; the amount you seen online and pay for is exactly the amount that will be deducted from your account.
