Aegean Airlines Adding Long-Haul Flights With Expanded Airbus Fleet

Economy

Aegean Airlines Adding Long-Haul Flights With Expanded Airbus Fleet

July 25, 2024

An Aegean Airlines Airbus A321neo. (Photo: aegeanair.com)

ATHENS – Long known as an award-winning regional player in Europe and domestically, Aegean Airlines is adding direct flights from Athens and Thessaloniki internationally on its winter schedule.

The company will operate twice-weekly flights in February 2025 from the Greek capital to Abu Dhabi and Gran Canaria, one of the Grand Canary islands off the coasts of Morocco and the Western Sahara, and to Amsterdam from Thessaloniki.

Starting in October, Aegean will begin three weekly flights from Athens International Airport to Abu Dhabi on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays after beginning service to Dubai there in 2023,

To handle the new load and longer flights, Aegean has added four new Airbus A321neo LR aircraft in 2026-2027, which will enable flights of up to seven and a half hours, attracting a bigger customer base.

The journey to Gran Canaria takes some 5 ½ hours and Aegean is looking at going even further internationally with its new aircraft as it expects a potential record year in 2024, recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic that limited air travel.

The airline carried 44 million passengers in the second quarter from April through June, up 8 percent over the previous year that saw a record number of tourists pour into Greece and continuing in 2024.

The first half of the year is traditionally the slowest but it saw a 9 percent increase and 5.4 million seats added, making a total of 19.8 million in the six-month period, with spring especially strong.

International passenger traffic to and from Athens grew 13 percent annually to about 2 million people in the second quarter that came after flights were added to other European hubs, including Germany, England, Cyprus, Turkey, and Gulf and Baltic state countries.

The second quarter was also strong in Greece’s second-largest city of Thessaloniki, which is attracting people year round. Foreign arrivals grew 12 percent to 292,000 in the period, bringing the first total to some 500,000 people.

Athens International Airport is the airline’s hub and saw traffic from around the world grow exponentially as well after more than 31 million people – three times the country’s population – came in 2023.

That also lets them fly Aegean to islands and other locations, further benefiting the airline, with much of the traffic going to places like London, Frankfurt, Istanbul and Dubai as well.

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