Aegean Airlines

[nwoody2001]

I suspect with Aegean, they will focus their attention on 2 key markets, and neither or an easy win for them from BHX:

• 1 - City breaks to Athens
• 2 - Onward connections to Greek Islands

City breaks to Athens - With competition from Jet2 who fly the route as a daytime flight, Aegean will not be the first choice. Whilst the other night flying schedule may make sense to onward connections to the islands, a city break couple are not going to want to arrive in Athens at 5am when they cants check-in to their hotel until 3pm. Youd be exhausted.

Onward connections to greek islands (competition from Direct Flights) - Well Aegean will be up against 4x airlines (U2/LS/FR/BY) flying to 15x destinations across greece, over 31x routes and 94x weekly flights in the august peak all flying DIRECT to those routes (listed below). Consequently, when you factor in a night flights, layover times and the fact that Aegean were only flying 2x weekly and this limiting choice, you can see what Aegean were up against.

1. Athens (LS) (2x weekly)
2. Chania (LS/FR/BY) (5x weekly)
3. Corfu (U2/LS/FR/BY) (16x weekly)
4. Heraklion (U2/LS/BY) (10x weekly)
5. Kalamata (LS) (4x weekly)
6. Kavala (BY) (1x weekly)
7. Kefalonia (LS/BY) (6x weekly)
8. Kos (LS/BY) (10x weekly)
9. Mytilene (LS) (1x weekly)
10. Preveza/Lefkada (LS) (2x weekly)
11. Rhodes (U2/LS/FR/BY) (15x weekly)
12. Santorini (LS/BY) (4x weekly)
13. Skiathos (LS/BY) (4x weekly)
14. Thessaloniki (LS/BY) (4x weekly)
15. Zakynthos (LS/BY) (10x weekly)

Onward connections to greek islands (competition from other Connections) - Yes Aegean offered connectivity via ATH, but if you are going to connect with Aegean via ATH, then what is the benefit of that over other connections, why not fly Air France via CDG, Lufthansa via FRA/MUC, KLM via AMS etc? As Aegean have now removed their schedule, i cant show you a BHX example here is a real example from MAN... to Santorini as an example which you can imagine being repeated at BHX

Easyjet (MAN-JTR) £117
4:15 Hours (Direct)

Air France (MAN-JTR) £245
6:15 Hours (Via CDG)

Aegean (MAN-JTR) £259
8:45 Hours (Via ATH)

Aer Lingus (MAN-JTR) £293
8:55 Hours (Via DUB)

So in the case above flying from MAN-JTR is neither the fastest, most convenient or cheapest! and Aegean from BHX would be flying their 2x weekly flights against the likes of multiple daily flights from air france, lufthansa, aer lingus etc.

so in short, Aegean can make the likes of MAN work as given the size of MAN (2.3x larger than BHX in pax terms) there a large enough market to make a niche 4x weekly service sustainable. The likes of BRS/NCL maybe able to work because their neither have Jet2 or Tui bases the size of BHX nor the feeder connectivity that BHX has with the major european carrier!

I defo thinks their is a market for more BHX-ATH city break capacity so hope the likes of EZY will look at it in the future but to me, its clear to see why Aegean would struggle at an airport the size of BHX

 

[gulftraveller]

All true. Worth noting that many travellers to the Greek islands head to Piraeus for the ferries, departing to many different islands, including some which have no airport. Island hopping is very popular.

 

[andrew.clarkson]

Hi there all, are Aegian airlines still operating from Birmingham airport at all, because I have just looked at airlines and destination for Birmingham airport on its Wikipedia site, not listed down. So have they stopped flying from Birmingham airport, because according to their airline destination, they still do ..

 

[Scania1800]

Hi there all, are Aegian airlines still operating from Birmingham airport at all, because I have just looked at airlines and destination for Birmingham airport on its Wikipedia site, not listed down. So have they stopped flying from Birmingham airport, because according to their airline destination, they still do ..

Just because their airline destination on a Wikipedia page hasn’t changed doesn’t make it correct

 

[andrew.clarkson]

Thanks Scania 1800.