Jan
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Aegean Air
Filed Under Airlines
Aegean Air - image courtesy Wikipedia
The Greek based Aegean airline is the second largest in its country and the first to receive awards from ERA, the representative body for regional air transport throughout Europe. It began as a first class carrier in 1987 targeting VIP travellers but started its scheduled passenger service in May 1999 to destinations within Greece. In 2001 the airline merged with Cronus Airlines and in 2005 partnered with Lufthansa to offer passengers participation in the successful Miles & More program.
Aegean Air is owned by a number of companies and individuals, with the largest percentage possessed by Vassilakis Group at 45.2%. They provide services to nearly 20 airports throughout Greece and over 20 destinations throughout Europe, in particular Germany, operating mostly from Athens, Thessaloniki and Heraklion airports.
Since the introduction of e-ticketing and e-check-in customers have been able to avail themselves of quick, easy and efficient services, cutting out the hassle and queues. Lucky customers whose domestic flights are delayed by one hour or more get a free ticket. Excellent in-flight service and clean, modern cabin interiors ensure that passengers travel in comfort. Check-in counters open 90 minutes and close 30 minutes before departure.
Recently Aegean Air have invested 800 million USD in purchasing new aircraft, including 11 Airbus A320 and eight A321. Their first service to Africa has also been introduced, offering regular flights from Athens to Cairo. The airline has been successful in ensuring passenger safety since its beginnings in the late 1980s, enhancing its proud reputation for service and safety. In 2006 the Greek airline reported an increase of 11% in customer numbers.
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Just got back from a trip to Crete. Aegean Air is like a Southwest Airlines (USA) for Greece.
Very nice new clean airplanes, food, polite attendants, and they code share with Lufthansa. But there are big problems transitioning from Star Alliance carriers like United. You must leave ample time to get a totally separate boarding pass in either direction (i.e., from a Star Alliance carrier to Aegean and also from Aegean to a Star Alliance carrier). You have to leave the boarding area and go to the front counter, wait in line, get the boarding pass, then head back through security then back to the gate. Luggage can be checked all the way through, however.
Because they are popular with locals, the lines are often long. Also I could not get seat assignments on-line as advertised although you can sometimes email their help desk to get that taken care of. They are in the process of joining Star Alliance and that should make things more seamless, I hope.
One last gripe, YouTube has several videos from inside the cockpit during take-off and landings. The folks taking the video looked like passengers. The Aegean pilots should be canned for those stunts. A PSA jet went down in San Diego after colliding with a small plane on landing …the pilot was distracted by some buddies in the cockpit at the time. PSA went out of business shortly thereafter. I was on a US Scare (Air) flight where a “buddy” of the pilot was in the jump seat …again …we had another major flight incident. It was so bad that paramedics met us at the gate.
Other than that, if I have to fly in Greece, I would choose Aegean over Olympic. Olympic has actually crashed airplanes and killed people.
aegean air isn’t as good as olympic air maybe in food service it can be better or in other things but olympic air has more destinations and have been so many years from the crashed of olympic air before the year 2000.olympic air has bigger jets.and the biggest jet of aegean air carry just 195 passengers.you can see it at wikipedia.it is true that aegean air carried more passengers for 2008 but not in the other years.and i think that olympic air will get better cause now it is an indipendent airline.olympic air is true that has crashed one day but the airlines technology was lower after the year 2000 and that’s true olympic air has so many years that didn’t crash let’s say more than 15 years ore more.i travel with olympic air evry year for christmas or in summer with my family this year i will travel for christmas with olympic air to visit my family there in rhodes island i fly evry year from tirana-arhens-rhodes island and i enjoy the flight it is safe.i traveled with this company when i was 6 months in 1997 and till 2009 and i’ll travel in other years too.i’m just 11 years and i like the airlines world and i love olympic air too.i am a boy and i want to open my own airline when i grow up it will be an indipendent airline based in athens airport rhodes airport and thessaloniki airport my company will beat aegean air and it will be better i know this and i pray for this.THANK YOU