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| Aegean considering frequency increases and new routes to EX-YU |
Aegean Airlines is looking to add new destinations in the former Yugoslavia to accompany its existing services to Belgrade, seasonal flights to Dubrovnik and charter runs to Maribor. As EX-YU Aviation News learns, Ljubljana and Zagreb are high on the agenda for the Greek carrier, which has been expanding rapidly since its tie-up with Olympic Air two years ago. “Aegean is considering increasing frequencies on existing routes, as well as adding further destinations in the former Yugoslav region”, Aegean Airlines’ Public Relations and Press Director, Stavroula Saloutsi, says. She adds that further details regarding new route launches will be available this autumn. “Plans for summer 2016 are in progress as we speak and have yet to be finalised”, Ms Saloutsi notes.
Earlier this year, Aegean forged a reciprocal codeshare agreement with Air Serbia. Under the agreement, Aegean’s designator code and flight numbers now appear on Air Serbia’s services between Belgrade and Athens, as well as its flights between Belgrade and Ljubljana, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Dubrovnik and Split. On the other hand, Air Serbia has placed its flight numbers and code onto Aegean Airlines' services from Athens to Heraklion, Corfu, Rhodes and Larnaca. This June, Aegean launched summer flights from Athens to Dubrovnik. The service operates three times per week with a Dash 8 aircraft and competes directly against Croatia Airlines. “Performance is satisfactory on these routes, as is the cooperation with Air Serbia”, Ms Saloutsi says.
Aegean has been eyeing several new routes in the former Yugoslavia over the past few years, including Ljubljana, Banja Luka and Zagreb. The Star Alliance member has never operated scheduled flights to Slovenia, but runs charters to both Ljubljana and Maribor. In 2013, Aegean expressed interest to operate charter services to Banja Luka with the two sides holding talks. However, it is believed airport authorities did little to meet conditions set out by the Greek carrier and the flights never materialised. Only last month, local tour operators called on the airport’s management to consider possible charters to Greece. In addition, Sarajevo Airport has expressed interest for it to be linked to the Greek capital. Meanwhile, the operator of Zagreb Airport is courting several airlines following the success it has had with bringing the likes of KLM, Swiss International, LOT and Flydubai. With hubs in Athens and Larnaca, Aegean has been expanding rapidly, adding an impressive 38 new routes this summer alone.
Aegean is a really interesting airline that has been growing like crazy. It was only a matter of time before they added other routes to ex-Yu but my money is on Ljubljana first.
ReplyDeleteThey would be a great addition to Zagreb. A really good airline offering good service.
ReplyDeleteAre you for real? Aegean is currently offering a very bad product, barely above low-cost airlines. The food is inedible. Maybe that was true many years ago but not now.
DeleteIt would make sense if they started LJU and ZAG. It seems like all European * alliance airlines are doing it lately.
ReplyDeleteDemise of Adria and Croatia A. is inevitable.
ReplyDeleteWhy? What routes are they competing with Aegean that would cause them so much damage as to go bust?
DeleteI seriously doubt anyone would fly from Croatia or Slovenia to Europe through Athens.
Aegean would be flying passengers from Greece and Middle East to Croatia/Slovenia and vice versa.
No competition with OU or JP.
Exactly, TK is the target here
DeleteAir Serbia will be harmed as well.
DeleteNo buyers for these companies, foreign ones persistently taking part of the sky, no more stuff to sell, EU membership.....
DeleteAnd, unlike all other ex-YU airlines, A3 is a profitable carrier, despite the Greek crisis.
ReplyDeleteIt is because as a 100% private company can operate properly and fly only the routes that are profitable and without having to hire the cousins and girlfriends of politicians like the old Olympic Airways did.
DeleteWith JU suspending Larnacn, Aegean's numbers will only increase from BEG. I flew with them a few years ago and they were a great alternative to Jat. Youg and professional crew and even a hot meal on the 1.30 minute flight.
ReplyDeleteWon't happen because they are quite pricey to Larnaca, especially when compared to Wizz Air.
DeleteThey are already flying to Maribor (MBX) for years and they know the possibilities for expansion there. Hopefully they will fly regulary to LJU or MBX. If so, it would be great for MBX.
ReplyDeleteI can agree. I flew from MBX to CFU (Corfu) and i must admit that it was a pleasent experience from both MBX and Aegean. More charter flights would also be a blessing for MBX
DeleteThat would be great news for Zagreb!
ReplyDeleteAegean is quit impressive company that despite operating from bankrupt Greece is having a phenomenal growth and most importantly is highly profitable!
A3 je kompanija na koju bi trebalo JU da se ugleda, a ne po svaku cenu juriti za letovima za SAD. Treba regionalnu mrezu jos rasiriti. Sta je sa BCN, MAD, TBS, VCE, NCE, DUB, HEL, CAI...
ReplyDeleteOnly CAI as a BEY and TSF, other are bad choice.
DeleteBad choice for a bad company!
DeleteIf they do launch Zagreb flights then it will be interesting to see what OU does. Their ZAG-ATH via DBV won't be competitive and they will face financial disaster on the route.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, given A3's low fares (without luggage), it will be interesting to see how JU responds given the number of people flying from ZAG to ATH via BEG.
now hold your breath please:
ReplyDeleteback in time (Dec.2003) Aegean's only ex-yu destination was Skopje
Sweet!
Pozdrav ;)
That flight should definitely return!
DeleteThe Aegean Q400's are ideal for ATH-SKP.
I basically agree. But won't happen as they've got still some political trouble. (->"FYR" Mac(k)edonia).
DeleteA Dash would also work to Pristina, Podgorica and even Sarajevo. (PS: Austrian is regularly flying VIE-LYS with a Dash).
That is really good news for Croatian and Slovenian passengers.
ReplyDeleteTK will finally have real competition for flights to Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Plus via Athens it would be very convenient to fly to 30+ other Greek airports, Izmir, Malta and Cyprus.
ASL on the other hand will loose a lot of Croat and Greek passengers who travel between Croatia and Greece via BEG.
Yes lot of Greeks travel to Croatia.... Only Croats who can afford foreign leisure travel will be affected with new flights.
DeleteIf the flights are timed right then they could also attract some passengers heading to Tbilisi and Yerevan.
DeleteAs for their Tehran route, seems like it's performing really well as they are sending their A321 from time to time.
I hope next year it might become year-round.
Anonymous 11:41 AM Obviously you don't know relations between Croatia and Greece, so do not talk about something you don't know.
Delete1. Lot of Croats are on vacation in Greece. That means some Greeks have to come to Croatia and Croats to Greece for negotiation, preparation, signature of contracts…
2. Most of graduation excursions from Croat are in Greece. Again negotiation, preparation, contracts.
3. You will be surprised that more than 11.000 tourists in 2014 came from Greece and Cyprus just in Zagreb.
4. Trade exchange between Croatia and Greece is more than 70.000.000,00 EUR. Businessmen have to travel for that.
5. Because of European Union membership political relations are even bigger than before.
6. There is military collaboration (NATO), sport, science…
7 . But transit passengers via ATH for sure is the biggest poetical.
How yes Know. Lot of excursions from BEG in BCN but no all year round flights. Etc etc.
DeleteCould we ask Dane Kondic if he is reading this blog, why is Air Serbia not flying to Tehran?
DeleteTehran is Etihad territory. BEG passengers feed Etihad's flight to Iran through Abu Dhabi.
DeleteWith so many possibilities via Istanbul (Pegasus and Turkish Airlines), I highly doubt anyone is transiting via AUH. Anyway, if they are going via the Persian Gulf then it will be Dubai.
DeleteAir Serbia JU634 Belgrade-Warsaw 12 Aug 2015 0J109Y
ReplyDeleteOverall score: 3/5
Comparable airlines: [Qatar Airways] > Turkish Airlines > Air Serbia > Aeroflot > [Aegean] > LOT > Pegasus > Wizz Air
Check-in:
Due to some obscure reason, the Air Serbia check-in areas 1, 2 and 3 aren't unified. While we can deliberate on the reasons behind that (in every sense of the term) i fail to understand why instead of small subtitles going under the huge Air Serbia sign that can't be seen from more than few meters away, the destinations for a particular check-in sector aren't written in big capital letters. Instead, there are agents who instead of greeting you rudely ask you (in Serbian) 'where are you flying' and then point you out to the right desk. That already levels-off any 'premium' feeling about the airline. No supervising person either, multiple employees completing competing and redundant tasks. The girl at the counter was also very rude and robotic, didn't show any kindness but just behaved as selling chewing gums at a corner shop. Besides, she had to call a colleague cause she couldn't find my ticket number at first so the whole check-in process lasted between 5 and 7 minutes. On the other hand, the staff was sufficient and the relative crowd from the evening wave was handled efficiently, it dissipated in no time. Same indifferent attitude to be witnessed by the BEG airport employees prior to immigration but that's already not the ingerence of Air Serbia. Overall check-in 2.5/5.
In-flight service:
The inflight service was unremarkable as well, before receiving food nothing would differentiate the experience from a low-cost airline. The enumeration during announcements of all Etihad Alliance members - 10 as of now - on multiple occasions (from Air Berlin to Air Seychelles) was very annoying. The food is probably the most positive aspect about the whole experience: delicious, relatively large fresh sandwiches with a cookie accompanied by a wide array of beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. That is on a 1h30 flight. Most of passengers got more than they expected. Similarly a bit to Turkish Airlines, the problem arises when the human factor enters into the equation. The FA's completely forgot to serve our row alcoholic drinks for instance. I didn't also notice any kindness or honest desire to serve the customer (i'm from Ukraine so don't think i expect smiles all around, it's more about the attitude, it felt both nonchalant and non-professional). After the service, we didn't see the FA's again.
The Elevate magazine is another huge downside. Besides being printed in Latin (what some may object others not), the paper is of terrible quality unlike the old review or first editions of Elevate itself - now 'celebrating' its first anniversary. Low quality articles and tasteless content meant to simply fill the low number of pages, riddled with mistakes of translation starting from the first page and Dane Kondic's address. What surprised me is that the magazine is edited from Serbian to English and not vice-versa. That is especially serious considering there is no IFE product, making the magazine the only accessible content for many passengers and a panel for customers to interact with the airline and as such it should be at least at a level found with Wizz Air or Aegean. After all, it's all in the details.
Conclusions: Overall, while the hard product is more than decent, what the airline certainly lacks is human touch and attention to detail. I suspect, however, that reflects to some extent the attitude towards employees of the airline itself. Frequent reshuffles of staff don't help either to sharpen quality and a corporate culture with a clear identity. Also, it wouldn't cost much to distribute a candy before take-off, serve glasses of water when passengers come from 40'C outside and interact in a more intelligent way with passengers. I am 6''3 tall and legroom was more than sufficient, i don't understand people complaining over it. Overall i'd rate the on-board product 3.5/5 with a lot of room for improvement on the side of the crew which equally applies to the ground-staff as well as other segments.
Deletehttps://pp.vk.me/c625728/v625728496/466e3/jvziFKjwQ-o.jpg
A ovo veze ima sa Ageanom, jeli?
DeleteI guess I'll post some Adria, Croatian pax reports so we can all get a better image of Ageans customer service and performance.....:)
Znaci svakodnevni off-topic hvalospevi Er Srbiji kada su druge teme u pitanju ti ne smetaju, ali off-topic kritika (znajuci gospodinove postove siguran sam dobronamerna) ti smeta. I sta drugo na to reci osim : dvostruki arsini i licemerje u svom najboljem izdanju
DeleteKoji je tebi? Ovde su OT normalni i pozeljni.
DeleteI think he is just being bitter that OU has so much less pax to write reports about.
Deletehaha yes that it's guys. I could give a *#$* about pax reports to be honest, that's not my problem. My is to get them from A to B safely and on time if at all possible. But I just find it funny that we are talking about Agean and someone digs up a report about a totally different airline? hahaha It's not even relevant or to be honest worth further discussion but hey, fill your boots!
DeleteYou better stick to "getting them from A to B safely", because : One, this report was announced by author few days ago on this very blog, and asked for by several people. Two, the author usually speaks favourably of JU. Three, Off-topics make at least 30 percent, if not more of everyday activity here, but hey, they are usually about Ju being one and only and superb and unbeatable and heavenly and mighty, and, how strange, you don't object to that, so please "drzi rogove i cuti"
DeleteI hope nobody of airport and cabin crew staff won't loose job after your report.
DeleteToo bad SJJ isn't in their plans. I think it could work for them in summer as there is considerable Serbian population around Sarajevo which naturally gravitates towards Greece. In addition to this, some people from Federation would welcome Greece as an alternative to Turkey, Marocco and Egipt.
ReplyDeleteAegean, with Dash fleet, could also link INI (and, who knows, potentially LYKV) with flights to SKG and/or ATH.
ReplyDeletemy2cents
Problem is because many people from Serbia use busses and cars especially and Niš is not that far away from Greece as BEG for example so I don't think those flights would be popular. Especially if you take into consideration popularity of "paradajz turizam" in Serbia and airline lugage restrictions.
Deletehahaha so true but sad at the same time!
DeleteNever the less, I still think there could be a once a week charter to those cities on the Q400.
Sorry, I meant transfer passengers for European destinations, particularly from SKG, due to a short flight (225nm). With good connection and pricing, this could be a viable alternative for Nis region.
Deletemy2cents
The most on important news about Aegean on ex-yu market : they are changing equipment on flights to Belgrade, Q400 will be replaced by A320. At same time fares are going down, especially if you fly to Greek islands via Athens.
ReplyDeleteThe change will take place starting from W15.
DeleteTheir fares out of Belgrade are also good (W15).
DeleteATH €92
HER €99
RHO €99
LCA €136
BEY €159
CAI €218
HBE €290
EVN €327
These are all fares without luggage. I remember last winter when they used to send their A319, their loads were really great (around 65% to 75%).
Bad news for Air Serbia...
DeleteI looked at JU's fares and they charge:
DeleteATH €120
BEY €341.
As far as Beirut goes, Turkish is around €350 and Pegasus around €220.
It's interesting to see Aegean slowly becoming more and more aggressive.
Good news for Serbian citizens....That's of higher importance.
DeleteIt is Anon 5:28 and also for Serbia's economy because many Greeks AND non Greeks from all these countries would be able to travel cheaply to BEG.
DeleteAMS-DBV Sep 6 to Sep 14
DeleteAir Serbia 643 Euros. Each way have to spend a night in BEG.
Croatia Airlines 526 Euros. No stayover in ZAG
Thought I would visit Dubrovnik, since I will be in Europe on business. So decided to take a quick vacation while there.
For 500-600 Euros you can fly from Europe to Bangkok or Shanghai and back. Just for your info Easyjet flies from AMS to Split/Dubrovnik for about 200 Euros return, when bought couple days prior to departure. But if you like to waste your money on 2 hour flights, just go on, be my guest, either on JU or OU
Deletetako ti kresimiru k. solis pamet? cccc
Deletepa svi koji umeju da citaju procitali su da solim pamet i kresimiru k. i danetu k. jer su ocigledno s obzirom na gore navedene cene obojica isti k, cak je dane i malo veci k. pa ne vidim zbog cega samo kresimira spominjes
DeleteDid you think that this farrytail will last? StarAliance will not just sit&wait. SA will not leave that someone in front of it's door would grab it's money.
ReplyDelete+100... pure economy and profit run
DeleteWhat ferrytail are you talking about?
DeleteI think he meant furry-tail...
DeleteAnon 5:43 LOL!
DeleteWith the ASL
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mozzartsport.com/vesti/prljava-predigra-batea-ekspedicija-partizana-drzana-sat-i-po-vremena-u-minsku/113245
DeleteFebruar 2005.godine. Partizan protiv Dnjipro Dnjepropetrovska, Ukrajina. Veliki udoban avion 727, extra posada carevi. Nezaboravni letovi.
Would be nice to see A3 in ZAG and LJU with scheduled flights..
ReplyDeleteJP could fly less loss making charter flights... and focus more onits core business.... currently ongoing cancellations due to AOGs, than they hve to rent expensive equipment to keep the schedules going. Last week they rented A340 for DUSPRN since no other ac was avbl
flew LJUZRH today. 75 out of 86 seats sold.
For all smokers, 100 cigarettes on board JP cost 23 EUR only
awardwinning inflight magazine get cost cutting measures. Less pages, avbl only 4 x year. Instead IFE with tablets shall be launched. But who the heck needs IFE from LJU to ZRH MUC or TGD? Especially if u still hve to pay for it
OT