Airport service workers ask PM to ensure back-pay, clarify legal status

TURKEY’S Pegasus Airlines could take over ground services at Ercan airport, Finance Minister Serdar Denktaş revealed on Thursday, after workers at Cyprus Airport Services (CAS) took their fight for pay and recognition to the government.

CAS employees demonstrated outside the Prime Ministry this week, challenging Premier Tufan Erhürman to ensure they received two months’ back-pay and clarification of their legal status.

Dr Erhürman, who came outside after talks with CAS staff representatives, promised that wages would be paid — a pledge that resulted in 46 days’ pay being released on Wednesday.

Workers had also demanded to know whether CAS was considered a state enterprise.

The PM relayed the Attorney-General’s opinion that it was in fact a limited company.

However, he said the government would seek the transfer of CAS shares worth three million TL that the state had paid for following a ministerial decision in 2010.

“As prime minister, I am liable to follow up three million TL that was taken from the state’s budget,” he said.

On Thursday Mr Denktaş told protesters that two firms were “interested” in buying CAS — one of which was Pegasus — but that they did not want to take on the company’s “12-million TL debt”.