Thanks to Aegean's alliance with my airline, I had the opportunity to snag three discount tickets on a variety of their medium-short haul routes.
London (LHR) - Athens (ATH): 4 hours
Athens (ATH) - Santorini (JTR): 1 hour
Mykonos (JMK) - Athens (ATH): 0.5 hour
Aircraft: 4/5
The nation's new flag carrier (after the acquisition of Olympic Air) operates a modest narrow-body fleet of 47 variants of Airbus 319-321, making them Greece's largest airline. While their A321s are modern and fitted with cutting edge interior, several of the A320s are showing signs of age and could use some updating. They also lack wide body airframes, which limits them to being a "regional" airline serving Europe, parts of Africa and the Middle East.
Service: 5/5
Greeks are a friendly bunch, and their staff members certainly exemplified this. Cabin crew were very courteous, accommodating, and efficient on all sectors. Ground personnel also went above and beyond to ensure passengers were able to make their connections expeditiously after a weather and traffic delay coming from LHR. I missed mine to Santorini, and they met me at the arrival gate to hand me a boarding pass for the next one 2 hours later, along with a meal voucher. I got to relax and enjoy some gyros, baklava, and Turkish coffee, instead of standing in line for rebooking at the transfer/help desk which is standard practice for many airlines. Outstanding!
Food: 3/5
Pasta and Greek wine was served on the flight from LHR, while they gave out cookies and candy on the short ones. Nothing to write home about, but A-OK as far as airline food goes.
Performance and reliability: 4/5
90 minutes late going from LHR-ATH, though it was largely caused by thunderstorms and London air traffic control. 15 minutes late for JMK-ATH, which is a tad much for a flight that is blocked at 35 minutes.
I must admit I had not heard of Aegean until my travels to Greece. Their SKYTRAX rating is 8/10, and they were awarded Europe's Best Regional Airline for 2015. Well-deserved in my book. EasyJet and Ryanair, eat your heart out! read more