Her third “hit”. Aegean against the competition in the last two years is the acquisition of four Airbus aircraft of the upgraded version A321 neo LR. It has been preceded by an investment of 140 million euros for the creation, together with the Canadian CAEof the first modern Center for Flight Simulators and Crew Training in Greece and the modern technical base of aircraft maintenance. Through the four new planes, which will be received in the two years 2026-2027, Aegean will be able to carry out longer-range flights with a duration of four to seven and a half hours, mainly to destinations in the south and southeast of Greece.
Aegean, for the first time in its 25-year history, is adding long-haul to its network, except The European Uniondestinations, which are estimated to belong to Persian Gulfthe Central Africa and the Asia. In some of the markets of the specific regions the airline launched its presence at the end of last year, starting flights to and from Dubaithe Jeddah and Riyadh. The new aircraft, scheduled for delivery in 2026-2027, are expected to lead to new routes in Middle Eastto Bahrain, Doha and Omanin Central Africato Hare, Nairobi, Addis Ababain India to Delhi the Bombay and to Kazakhstan to Almaty. To understand the size of these markets, it is enough to consider that the airport in Delhi alone last year handled 72.2 million passengers to more than 140 destinations. Also, last year Doha Airport welcomed around 46 million people to more than 180 destinations.
For the first time in its 25-year history, Aegean is adding distant destinations outside the European Union to its network.
With Aegean seeking to offer a product comparable to that of carriers operating in non-EU destinations, with flight times of 4 to 7.5 hours and distances of up to 7,400 kilometers or 4,000 nautical miles, the airline emphasizes providing a highest level of comfort for both economy and business class passengers. Therefore, the A321 neo LR, which has a significantly smaller number of seats – less than 180 – compared to the standard version of Aegean’s A321neo (220 seats), will include satellite Internet and entertainment screens (IFE) in every seat. Also, in business class the seat will be horizontal reclining (lie flat seats) approximately two meters long.
Maximizing its competitive advantage, Aegean will in the near future inaugurate its new technical base, which has 10 aircraft seats and through which it will be possible to provide maintenance services on behalf of third parties. It is estimated that the maintenance activity will correspond to 500,000 working hours per year. Since the beginning of January, the flight simulator and training center has also started operating, where crews not only of Aegean, but also of foreign airlines are trained, with the demand for training of air carrier crews from abroad, as reported by the information, constantly intensifying. The flight simulator and crew training center, the engineering school and the technical maintenance base make up the integrated Aegean ecosystem at “Eleftherios Venizelos”, which is an investment of 140 million euros. Since it will have 35,000 sq.m. photovoltaic panels with a power of 3 MW, will be the first green installation (hangar) of this type in Europe.
Zoom in
Almost six years have passed since the death of Aegean founder Theodoros Vassilakis, market players report that, from 2018 until today, despite the pandemic crisis that threatened the viability of the industry, the airline has shown remarkable growth under the management of Evtychi Vasilakis and Dimitris Gerogiannis. In 2018, Aegean and its subsidiary, Olympic Air, had a turnover of 1.19 billion euros, carried 14 million passengers and covered a network of 151 destinations, 120 international and 31 domestic, in 44 countries. In 2019, a record year, it covered 155 destinations, carried 15 million passengers and had a fleet of 65 aircraft. However, these figures are significantly enhanced in 2023, when the turnover reached 1.7 billion euros, the transported passengers amounted to 15.7 million and the offered seats were 18.5 million. Today the airline’s network covers 180 destinations in 49 countries, with Aegean having 77 aircraft, of which 28 are neo of the A320/321 family.
