Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

On Thursday 5 July, in the British parliament, Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet Theresa Villiers put a question to UK Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling, she asked:
“Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Government have no intention of allowing direct flights between the United Kingdom and the northern part of Cyprus?”
North Cyprus News - Chris GraylingChris Grayling responded by saying:
“Let me be clear: all Members of the House would like to see a long-term solution to the issues on the island of Cyprus. This country will continue to work with our friends in Cyprus to try to achieve that goal, but our policies on flights have not changed”.

I asked my cousin why the above and his answer was as follows :

Deniz it is becasue it is impossible. It is againt international law.

It really is very simple. Turkey can allow direct flights if they choose to do so. All they have to do is make sure there are flights which do not need to drop passengers or pick them up and they can just continue on their journey without landing and nobody else will be any wiser. They do not want to do it.

IS THIS TRUE ?

My understanding of it is that a flight from say the UK has to land somewhere and as the TRNC doesn't officially exist it can't fly there. So they fly to Turkey.

DenizIsmail wrote:I asked my cousin why the above and his answer was as follows : Turkey can allow direct flights if they choose to do so. All they have to do is make sure there are flights which do not need to drop passengers or pick them up and they can just continue on their journey without landing and nobody else will be any wiser. They do not want to do it.

As a mathematician, I can tell you that, without prior arrangement, the chance of no boarders or alighters on any one flight is extremely remote ... meaning the airlines would have to promote such non-stop flights ... it wouldn't take long for particularly the GCs to learn of just one flight ... and you can then just imagine their reaction.

Deniz'ciğim ... don't always believe what your relatives say.

CTA used to do it on a Thursday, they had 2 flights in the evening and the later one often used to fly direct. British Airways flew Deep Purple in direct a couple of years ago, thought that would be the start of direct flights.

DieHard wrote:CTA used to do it on a Thursday, they had 2 flights in the evening and the later one often used to fly direct.

Are you sure about that Die Hard? Are you maybe confusing "non-stop" with "direct". Although Deniz wrote "direct", he meant a flight that didn't touch down - ie "non-stop". In an advert on the old Cyprus44 forum CTA wrote "like all airlines offering flights to Northern Cyprus, Cyprus Turkish Airlines stop over in Turkey before flying on to Ercan North Cyprus ... the flight takes around five hours including the stop over, so it won’t be long before you will be stepping out into the North Cyprus sunshine at Ercan airport."
Source : http://www.cyprus44.com/flights/cyprus- ... rlines.asp

Diehard is correct the flights were from Stanstead One at 9.15pm and one at 9.45pm. I have picked up a mate who came non stop.

rigsby wrote:Diehard is correct the flights were from Stanstead One at 9.15pm and one at 9.45pm. I have picked up a mate who came non stop.

OK, thanks for that.

DieHard wrote: British Airways flew Deep Purple in direct a couple of years ago, thought that would be the start of direct flights.

The aircraft that brought Deep Purple to the TRNC for the show at NEU was painted in BA colours, but was a privately-chartered aircraft supplied by an aircraft charter company regularly used by Deep Purple. The flight was in no way operated by, or had any connection with, British Airways.

magalan wrote:The aircraft that brought Deep Purple to the TRNC for the show at NEU was painted in BA colours, but was a privately-chartered aircraft supplied by an aircraft charter company regularly used by Deep Purple. The flight was in no way operated by, or had any connection with, British Airways.

Thanks for that magalan.

rigsby wrote:Diehard is correct the flights were from Stanstead - One at 9.15pm and one at 9.45pm. I have picked up a mate who came non stop.

Die Hard and Rigsby,
I presume then that neither of you have actually flown non-stop? It's just after googling and asking my TC in-laws about these "non-stop flights", I have read/heard nothing.
If there were such flights, then did CTA actually promote them? I ask this, because with two flights the same evening, it is possible that CTA promoted just a touch-down flight, leaving at 9.15. Then at check-in, asked passengers if they preferred to take a later flight that went straight to Ercan. It is possible then that our beloved GCs would be none the wiser.

Message 16 from this 2008 Cyprus44 forum thread also tells of the Thursday evening flight. Sorry I doubted you guys.

Pipie_on_Cyprus44_in_2008 wrote:Shoosh keep this a secret , but if you fly from Stanstead on a late Thursday night , it has been known on a few occasions that you fly direct to Ercan with no stopover. Shooosh now.

Source : http://www.cyprus44.com/forums/4897.asp

I have flown non stop on 3 occasions with CTA ,When pilot announced it on one occasion (in Turkish)I had to ask the Turkish passenger next to me why the applause ,he said we are going non stop to Ercan.

davedee wrote:I have flown non stop on 3 occasions with CTA ,When pilot announced it on one occasion (in Turkish)I had to ask the Turkish passenger next to me why the applause ,he said we are going non stop to Ercan.

Dave Dee,
That then suggests that CTA promoted it as a touch-down-in-Turkey flight ... and that's how CTA were able to fly under the GC radar ... so to speak.

I have flown three times direct with CTA from STA to ECN. I recall there were two overnight flights both taking off about at approx 23.00. One went to IST the other direct to ECN. I assume both flights avoided the Greek ATC.

AP

So if we are saying that there were direct flights with Cyprus Turkish Airlines from Stansted to Ercan ( no stopping) why not now with Pegasus ? Is this true then what my cousin has said that its Turkey not wanting to do it ?

Deniz,
Pegasus are not doing it because they don’t want to break international law. CTA were taking a risk.

They just changed flight numbers in mid-air, no big deal. What's the point of touching down in Turkey if nobody is getting on or off?

frontalman wrote:They just changed flight numbers in mid-air, no big deal. What's the point of touching down in Turkey if nobody is getting on or off?

I disagree with you Frontalman - I feel it would have been a quite a "big deal"/risk for CTA - it could have lead to heavy fines and/or them losing their license to operate.

frontalman wrote:(not) touching down in Turkey if nobody is getting on or off

I am curious as to how CTA ensured nobody got on or off. I find it difficult to believe CTA openly informed the public beforehand of their intention to fly non-stop for the reasons stated above. Indeed from what Davedee wrote, the decision to fly non-stop was, at least on one of his flights, made mid-air. It seems more plausible that on evenings with two flights (both ostensibly going to Istanbul) CTA were able to put Istanbul-bound passengers on one flight and Cyprus-bound on the non-stop one.

Aripointer wrote:I assume both flights avoided the Greek ATC.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, but my use of "under the GC radar" was in a metaphorical, and not literal, sense ... and yes, the pun was very much intended

Never mind, I got it & I thought that it was very punny (pun intended ).

I flew CTA direct to Ercan without touching down twice and my daughter also another time. I know many people that did also.

Me too - only problem was you landed approx 75 mins early - eventually car hire/taxi companies got so used to it they learnt to check for early landing - before that you had to wait!

Deniz1 wrote:I flew CTA direct to Ercan without touching down twice and my daughter also another time.

Deniz1,
Were you aware, when you booked the flight, that it was non-stop?
To date, all those taking this flight have spoken of two CTA flights around the same time ... and it was only later (or even mid-air) they learned that CTA had put them on the non-stop one.

Alisun wrote:Me too - only problem was you landed approx 75 mins early

So Alisun, when did you learn that the flight was non-stop? Mid-air?

I too had 3 direct flights with CTA back in the day. There were 2 flights on a Friday night, at check in, one going to say Antalya, & one to Ercan. They would say those going to Antalya, check in at this desk and those going to Ercan, check in here. Whilst they would not admit, you were not stopping in Turkey, you knew that was the reason and the smirk on the face, when you asked, also gave it away. Then you had to contact whoever was picking you up to come earlier than planned.

Mr Crumpy, obviously it's not advertised that the flight will not land in Turkey. And technically it did, although it didn't. Only those on board and friends/family would know the truth so no danger really. Good job you weren't on board by the sounds of it.

Dawnie1 wrote:I too had 3 direct flights with CTA back in the day. There were 2 flights on a Friday night, at check in, one going to say Antalya, & one to Ercan. They would say those going to Antalya, check in at this desk and those going to Ercan, check in here. Whilst they would not admit, you were not stopping in Turkey, you knew that was the reason and the smirk on the face, when you asked, also gave it away. Then you had to contact whoever was picking you up to come earlier than planned.

Good luck to them for getting around the embargoes as best they can

Dawnie1 wrote:There were 2 flights on a Friday night, at check in, one going to say Antalya, & one to Ercan. They would say those going to Antalya, check in at this desk and those going to Ercan, check in here. Whilst they would not admit, you were not stopping in Turkey, you knew that was the reason and the smirk on the face, when you asked, also gave it away. Then you had to contact whoever was picking you up to come earlier than planned.

Thanks for that Dawnie1. So, they always had two flights around the same time ... and put the Ercan-bound pasengers on the non-stop one ... still I'm surprised the GCs didn't complain ... surely they must have known something was going on.

frontalman wrote:Mr Crumpy ... Good job you weren't on board by the sounds of it.

Frontalman,
I merely wanted to learn how CTA ensured that all passengers were flying to Ercan, without announcing beforehand to the public, and in particular to the GCs ... and thanks to Dawnie1 and others on this forum, I now know ... CTA always had two planes going about the same time. Have a nice day.

Looking at the old 44 forum link reminded me that the first flight from Ercan to Birmingham we were on it.All 14 of us When asking for seats we were told sit where you like. What did bother me a little was that a CTA mechanic was also on the plane in his overalls???? When we landed at Birmingham the ground crew were confused and lost the luggage,Only 8 passengers as the others got off in Turkey. We flew back from Birmingham a fortnight later and there were 70 passengers.

rigsby wrote:Looking at the old 44 forum link ...

There's still a mine of useful information there

rigsby wrote:What did bother me a little was that a CTA mechanic was also on the plane in his overalls.

Yes, that would be rather disconcerting

Those were the days!

iancrumpy wrote:

rigsby wrote:What did bother me a little was that a CTA mechanic was also on the plane in his overalls.

Yes, that would be rather disconcerting

not as disconcerting as sitting there having taken them off....

Re question 1. I believe Ms Villiers is married to a Greek Cypriot? Damm Disgrace to ask such a question, it should be logged as a conflict of interest.

From Wiki -
"Personal life
Villiers married fellow barrister Sean Wilken in 1997, and the following year they co-wrote a book on matters of contract and quasi-contract law, which was published by a major publishing house. They are now divorced."
A quick search did not find any mention of other marriages or relationships....

Thank you for that. My info was obviously wrong, but she has always been so pro GC, there is something somewhere....? When I was a UK councillor, same party, I understood that she had a GC partner. But apologies for misleading people.

TB10pilot wrote:Thank you for that. My info was obviously wrong, but she has always been so pro GC, there is something somewhere....? When I was a UK councillor, same party, I understood that she had a GC partner. But apologies for misleading people.

I believe her constituancy has a fair sized GC community so that might have something to do with it?

EnjoyingTheSun wrote:I believe her (ie. Theresa Villiers') constituancy has a fair sized GC community so that might have something to do with it?

The TC community (and certainly the Turkish community) is growing more rapidly in London than the GC community and, moreover, spreading out into more leafier boroughs ... away from the ones we usually associate with TCs/Turks - ie. those of Enfield, Harringey and Hackney. It's quite likely that in Villiers' Chipping Barnet constituency there is now actually a higher number of TCs than GCs ... and that's not even bringing the Türks into the equation.

With a majority of just 353 in the last election, maybe someone in her party should advise Ms Villiers to stop being so vocal in her stance against non-stop flights to Ercan and the like.

She lists Cyprus and Israel has countries of interest on the Parliament website

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publ ... rds=cyprus

easy to see were her loyalty lies

kerry 6138 wrote:She lists Cyprus and Israel has countries of interest on the Parliament website - easy to see were her loyalty lies

Yeah, certainly a big Jewish community in her constituency, but the jury's out on whether it's in her best interests to be so pro "the south".

iancrumpy wrote:

EnjoyingTheSun wrote:I believe her (ie. Theresa Villiers') constituancy has a fair sized GC community so that might have something to do with it?

The TC community (and certainly the Turkish community) is growing more rapidly in London than the GC community and, moreover, spreading out into more leafier boroughs ... away from the ones we usually associate with TCs/Turks - ie. those of Enfield, Harringey and Hackney. It's quite likely that in Villiers' Chipping Barnet constituency there is now actually a higher number of TCs than GCs ... and that's not even bringing the Türks into the equation.

With a majority of just 353 in the last election, maybe someone in her party should advise Ms Villiers to stop being so vocal in her stance against non-stop flights to Ercan and the like.

Don’t know Barnet we’ll enough to argue but;

They’ve got a big Greek school there

https://www.hshb.org.uk

The Mayor if Barnet back in 2014 mentions “the largest Chinese community in the country and there are large Jewish, Indian and Greek-Cypriot communities too”

https://blogs.city.ac.uk/city-alumni/20 ... ver-mayor/

And the Greek Cypriot Brotherhood are based in Barnet too.
https://cypriotfederation.org.uk/greek- ... otherhood/

So if GCs are not in the majority maybe they are more vocal.

The highest density of TCs is certainly not in Barnet, but probably in Enfield ... where, in some schools, up to 40% of the school population is Turkish or Turkish Cypriot ... and, as you probably know, Barnet borders Enfield.

In a survey carried out in the 1990s by Nergis Canefe, she noted that Cypriots (whether they be GC or TC) tended to live alongside each other in London (see source). So, if there's a GC community, then there'll be TC as well. Since the 90s, more TCs, and in particular more Turks, have moved into London ... and have now spread out from their traditional boroughs of Hackney, Harringey and Enfield. I would imagine it is making Villiers (at least I hope it is) reassess whether she should be so pro "the south".

By the way, although my wife's family is TC, not Turk, some of them have actually moved into the borough of Barnet from Enfield. Of course, the movement of my in-laws doesn't argue the case, but it does allow one to appreciate that I am at least a little familiar with the demographics of North London. However, like yourself, I don't have the definitive statitistics on this to argue this properly. Maybe Villiers does have those statistics though ...

Although we are discussing the person mentioned in the first post, I'm sure someone out there will soon tell us we have strayed

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Cypriots

iancrumpy wrote:However, like yourself, I don't have the definitive statitistics on this to argue this properly. Maybe Villiers does have those statistics though ...

I know Harringay and Hackney better, where Greeks, Turks, GCs and TCs seem to rub along pretty well together.
My natural cynicism, her rhetoric and water thin majority lends me to think there must be more votes in GCs and looking at the demographic probably explains her interest in Israel too.
I’m guessing the spin doctors assume the Chinese don’t vote or else no doubt we’ll see her pontificating on Taiwan come the next election.

EnjoyingTheSun wrote:I know Harringay and Hackney better, where Greeks, Turks, GCs and TCs seem to rub along pretty well together.
My natural cynicism, her rhetoric and water thin majority lends me to think there must be more votes in GCs and looking at the demographic probably explains her interest in Israel too.
I’m guessing the spin doctors assume the Chinese don’t vote or else no doubt we’ll see her pontificating on Taiwan come the next election.

Yes, outside of Cyprus, the TCs and GCs tend to get on much better together. Indeed, in my wife's family alone, two of her cousins have married GCs in London ... maybe that's not so surprising since she has 24 cousins and most of them live in London. Her Father, you see, had 6 siblings. These days TCs, whether they be in London or Cyprus, don't tend to have such big families ... but the Turks still do ... and, as I wrote above, they are spreading out in the direction of Ms Villier's constituency