Aegean brings forward EX-YU service resumption


Greece’s Aegean Airlines has brought forward plans to resume flights to select markets in the former Yugoslavia. The carrier plans to restore operations between Athens and Skopje in under ten days, on February 15, twice per week with the 48-seat ATR42 turboprop, through its regional subsidiary Olympic Air. Flights between the two capital cities were suspended at the start of the coronavirus pandemic last year. This will be followed by the resumption of flights to Belgrade, on March 2, with two weekly services operated by Aegean’s mainline Airbus A319 aircraft. They will complement Air Serbia’s two weekly flights between Belgrade and Athens which have been running throughout much of the pandemic.

Operations to Croatia are set to restart at the beginning of the 2021 summer season. Services to Zagreb and Dubrovnik will commence on April 3, while flights to Split will be restored on May 18. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March, the carrier terminated its operations to Sarajevo, marking its exit from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s market after just one year. There are currently no plans to restart the service. Furthermore, the airline has terminated operations to Podgorica. Aegean has been serving Montenegro since 2017. Resumption date changes for all the abovementioned routes remain highly likely due to the pandemic, although the airline entered its schedule revisions this week.

Entry into Greece for the majority of nationals from outside of the European Union is still not permitted. However, the country is looking to facilitate travel during the Covid pandemic. It plans to sign a memorandum of understanding with Serbia which will regulate travel between the two countries between May 1 and October 1. It foresees the mutual recognition of electronic Covid-19 vaccination certificates for travel between the two countries. “This will allow entry to vaccinated citizens from both countries without restrictions, whereas a negative PCR test or antigen test will be obligatory for unvaccinated citizens. Also, random rapid tests will be conducted at the border”, the Serbian Tourism Minister, Tatjana Matić, said. On the other hand, two weeks ago, the Macedonian Foreign Minister, Bujar Osmani, signed a range of bilateral agreements in Athens. At the time he noted, “I expect that in the coming months, as the restrictive measures for the pandemic are eased, we will have an increase in cooperation between our two countries, in all sectors, including tourism and investment”.


Comments

  1. Anonymous09:01

    Finally some good news

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous09:02

    Interesting. How come the sudden urgency to restart SKP? Last week they didn't even have it on sale. Great news of course.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:09

      My guess is that they get aid since this was a highly political route when it was launched. Also it's the shortest of them all and operated by the highly economical ATR42.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:32

      I also think it may be more political (symbolic). Not saying there are no passengers, far from it but to bring it back in such a rush (starting sales less than 10 days before launch) while there are travel restrictions, just two weeks after foreign ministers met...

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:47

      It's a pretty major restriction since MKD people can't enter the EU. Like someone wrote above, costs are low so why not.
      Also SKP needs to work on rebuilding its network.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:11

      can imagine that the greek business community in MK have pushed for this

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    5. Anonymous10:19

      That would make no sense since all people (even those coming from EU) have to self isolate once they come back to Greece.

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    6. Anonymous10:25

      in that case flights from the EU also would make no sense

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    7. Anonymous10:28

      Are you seriously comparing flights from the EU to those from SKP? Obviously there is enough demand from those major cities they fly to even with quarantine restrictions.

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    8. Anonymous11:14

      and obviously there is from SKP too if they announce them. so many experts here

      Delete
    9. Anonymous11:21

      People are claiming this is more of a political route since it is the only that is launched in the next 10 days. No need to throw a hissy fit, it's unusual for the aviaiton business. That's what the experts are saying.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous11:28

      People, the route is operated with Q400 not ATR. Check thir website.

      Delete
    11. Anonymous11:30

      I checked and it says ATR42

      A3985 - Atr 42 Operated by Olympic Air
      1h 20min

      Delete
    12. Anonymous13:12

      Greeks and EU nationals entering Greece need to have a negative PCR test. In which case they do not need to isolate.

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    13. Anonymous13:26

      Not from a few weeks ago.

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    14. Anonymous13:49

      What type of traffic is there on the SKP-ATH route? My guess is O&D and quite few transfer to the Greek islands in summer, no? 2 weekly ATR is still not bad for February during a crisis.

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    15. Overwhelming majority is O&D. Tel Aviv was the number one destination passengers transferred to (in 2019) with the rest being mostly Greek islands.

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    16. Anonymous14:38

      Interesting, thanks admin. A3 do have good fares to Israel. Israelis similar to Poles are crazy about the Balkans.

      Delete
    17. cheers for that info admin

      (we would love an article about SKP top unserved routes in 2019 if we may ask ... )

      Delete
    18. Yes, it's coming this month

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:03

    Let's hope the dates stick.

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  4. Anonymous09:03

    Did they used to fly with ATR to Skopje in the past or was it the Q400?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:06

      Q400

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:12

      All their routes outside of Serbia and Croatia were with the Q400. But I think it's smart they bring the ATR42 now considering the situation.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:30

      Do they have any plans to retire those Dash planes?

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    4. Anonymous12:31

      No, they need them for many island destinations.

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    5. Anonymous13:14

      Why? They are great for a huge number of domestic routes and are very useful right now with the pandemic. Plus A3's Dash are not that old.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous09:06

    Good news about the Serbia-Greece MOU. Considering almost 600,000 people in Serbia have been vaccinated in less than a month since mass vaccination started, by May I assume there will be well over 2 million, meaning Greece summer holidays will be back on.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:10

      I think Aegean hopes to carry transfers to Cyprus from march since that's when borders open.
      Cyprus won't wait until May to open its market.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:12

      Close to a million vaccines will be delivered this month so even more will be vaccinated. Serbia is currently number two in Europe with 7.4% of its population vaccinated.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous09:11

    What about Zadar? Didn't they fly there?

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:12

      Who will fly now from Athen to Zadar?

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    2. Anonymous09:12

      ZAD was suspended well before corona.

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    3. Anonymous09:16

      I didn't realize. Thanks.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:18

      Split is just too close to make it work from a destination such as Athens.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous21:20

      ZAD wad cancelled after just one season, SPU was added the following year.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous09:31

    Good to see!

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  8. Anonymous09:47

    Love you Aegean! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  9. what about LJU???

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:04

      Well when they will get more neos, they could switch some q400 to a320 on other routes, and put q400 to LJU. 3x or 4x p/w with q400 would work

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:08

      ATH-LJU should be a fun ride on the Q400... not.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:13

      Didnt aegean operate q400 on ATH-ZAG? Thats just a little bit shorter flight

      Delete
    4. Anonymous12:39

      They tried and failed in LJU few years ago.

      Delete
  10. Anonymous10:08

    List of terminated destination by A3 in our region is getting quite long: Cluj, Zadar, Podgorica, Ljubljana, Sarajevo...

    Maybe they should try INI, OSI, BNX...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:52

      CLJ, ZAD, TGD, LJU, SJJ are all bigger markets than INI, OSI, BNX, so how will they have success on these three?

      Delete
  11. Anonymous10:09

    Exyu aviation, can you please report number of frecuencies between Croatia and Greece by Aegean.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:42

      4 weakly SPU-ATH with A319 and 5 weakly DBV-ATH.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous12:42

      Zagreb is twice per week

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    3. Anonymous12:43

      DBV is also 2 weekly at the start at least. Probably grows in peak summer.

      Delete
  12. what i dont get is ... why is Aegean not interested in transfer pax to/from West Europe?

    Except for LHR theres hardly a west connection bookable (I do get connections to greek airports and the likes of DME, LCA, TLV, CAI )

    They could be a fresh breeze in the transfer market in SKP

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:41

      I think they are well covered by Wizz and other airlines from SKP. But I agree, perhaps they could schedule one of the weekly flights differently. But I guess feed to southern destinations is more important to them.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous12:53

      they should do something like LOT (after C). they have the network for it

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    3. Anonymous15:05

      In the summer of 2019 Aegean had by far the best transfer options (both ways) to LIS from BEG.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous17:53

      I think LH or AZ would have better transfer options to Lisbon.

      I noticed Aegean changed their days to BEG, it's Tuesday and Saturday now.

      Delete
  13. Anonymous12:45

    Welcome back!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous12:50

    Their fares seem very reasonable. Was just checking SKP and BEG.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous15:05

      They usually always are, A3 rocks.

      Delete
  15. Anonymous22:20

    They need to open SKG -BNX summer route 2pw

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous11:42

    Oh excellent news. Well done Aegean!

    ReplyDelete

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