Cyprus Airways to Launch Daily Larnaca to London Stansted Flights

Cyprus Airways will launch a daily, year-round service between Larnaca and London Stansted on 23 April 2027, returning the brand to the London market for the first time since the original state-owned carrier ceased operations in January 2015. Tickets are already on sale through the airline’s website, mobile app and travel agencies. The carrier has not yet confirmed the aircraft type for the sector.

Route overview

The new link will operate seven weekly rotations in each direction, and the airline has stated that the schedule will continue through the winter season rather than following the seasonal pattern that characterises much of the Cyprus-UK leisure market. Departure and arrival times have not been published. The great-circle distance between the two airports is roughly 3,250 km, which puts the sector at around four and a half to five hours of block time depending on direction.

Cyprus Airways chief executive Thanos Paschalis described the launch as “a significant milestone for Cyprus Airways”, adding that “the United Kingdom has always been a particularly important market for Cyprus”. The airline’s own announcement was shorter: “The wait is over! Hello London!”

Fares are tiered across three products. Economy Basic return fares start at around EUR 423, including a 10 kg cabin bag and a 5 kg personal item. Economy Flex adds a 23 kg checked bag, standard seat selection and free amendments. The Business cabin includes two 32 kg checked bags, lounge access, priority boarding, fast-track check-in, meals and free cancellation.

Airline network context

The current Cyprus Airways is a separate company from the former flag carrier, which collapsed in January 2015 after the European Commission ordered it to repay more than EUR 100 million in state aid received in 2012 and 2013. The brand was acquired by Charlie Airlines in 2016 and relaunched under private ownership. According to the airline, it now operates six aircraft to 15 destinations and carries more than 600,000 passengers a year.

Its scheduled network from Larnaca covers Paris Charles de Gaulle, Milan Malpensa, Athens and Heraklion, alongside high-frequency year-round services to Tel Aviv, Beirut and Dubai. Barcelona and a number of Greek island points are flown on a seasonal summer basis. The Stansted announcement follows two further year-round additions due this winter: Rome Fiumicino from 11 December 2026 and Munich from 17 December 2026, both at twice weekly. Heraklion is scheduled to step up to three weekly flights from 28 October 2026.

Against that backdrop, Stansted becomes the first British point in the relaunched carrier’s scheduled network and its only daily, year-round service outside the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf. The original Cyprus Airways last operated regular London flights, also to Stansted, in 2015, so the choice of airport is a return rather than a new experiment.

About the aircraft

Cyprus Airways has not disclosed which type will fly the route. Its fleet of six is built around the Airbus A320 family, with the Airbus A220-300 added in recent years. Both types are comfortably within range of a 3,250 km sector. In the configurations typically flown on these types, a daily rotation would place between roughly 1,900 and 2,500 seats a week on the route in each direction, depending on whether the smaller A220 or the larger A320 is assigned. The airline has not published capacity figures for the service, and the assignment may vary by season.

About the airports

Larnaca International Airport is Cyprus’s principal gateway and the home base of Cyprus Airways. Live network data on bigairports.com shows 102 routes from the airport. The busiest by flight volume is Athens, with 945 flights across eight operators, followed by Tel Aviv with 758 flights across 16 operators, the most crowded pairing in Larnaca’s network. London is already served from Larnaca: Heathrow records 165 flights from a single operator, Gatwick 128 flights spread across six operators, and Manchester 33 flights from three operators. Stansted does not feature among the 15 busiest Larnaca routes in the current dataset, so the new service adds a third London airport to Larnaca’s map rather than a further operator on an existing pair.

London Stansted Airport is the larger network by a wide margin, with 229 routes in the live data, and it is dominated by short- and medium-haul leisure traffic to the Mediterranean. Palma de Mallorca leads with 1,117 flights, followed by Tenerife (936), Alicante (791), Malaga (749), Barcelona (714), Madrid (707) and Ibiza (634). Eastern Mediterranean links are thinner: Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen records 151 flights across three operators. The airport is Ryanair’s largest base, and most Stansted routes are flown by one or two carriers. The Larnaca addition fits Stansted’s profile as a point-to-point leisure airport with limited connecting traffic.

Market context and competition

The United Kingdom is one of the main source markets for inbound tourism to Cyprus, and the Cyprus-UK corridor is among the densest between the island and any single country. The visiting-friends-and-relatives segment, supported by the large Cypriot community in and around London, provides a year-round base that pure leisure demand does not. Cyprus Airways has said the route is aimed at business, leisure and VFR passengers in both directions.

On the O&D itself, Cyprus Airways will compete with incumbents at Heathrow and Gatwick, where the live data shows seven operators between them and close to 300 flights in the sample period. Stansted gives the carrier a distinct catchment across north London, Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, and lower airport charges than the two larger hubs, but it also places the airline alongside the Stansted low-cost model on fares. The airline has committed publicly to year-round daily operation; it has not published load-factor targets or capacity figures for the route.