Aegean Airlines: Greece’s Flag Carrier, Domestic and European Routes, Lounges

Aegean Airlines is Greece’s flag carrier and the airline most travelers meet when they fly between Athens and the islands or onward into Europe. Aegean Airlines is the flag carrier of Greece, a member of Star Alliance, and the one that connects Athens to a long list of islands and European capitals.

What is Aegean Airlines?

Aegean Airlines is the flag carrier of Greece, the national airline that most travelers meet first when they fly between Athens and the islands or between Greece and the rest of Europe. Founded in 1995 and flying since 1999, it has grown into the carrier most visitors meet on Greek domestic and European routes.

Its home is Athens, where it keeps one of its two hubs. The other is Thessaloniki. Beyond those two, the airline treats five more airports as secondary hubs: Chania, Heraklion, Kalamata, Larnaca and Rhodes. For a traveler, a hub is simply a place where many of the airline’s routes begin and end, which is why so many itineraries on its network pass through Athens.

Star Alliance and Olympic Air

Aegean Airlines belongs to Star Alliance, the global group of carriers. That matters if you are building a trip that starts on another member airline and finishes on an Aegean flight, since the two sit under the same alliance banner.

The airline also has a subsidiary, Olympic Air. The name appears on its own timetable, and it operates nonstop flights from Athens International Airport to a separate set of Greek islands: Ikaria, Karpathos, Kithira, Leros, Milos, Naxos, Paros, Sitia, Skiathos, Skyros and Zakynthos. If your island is on that list, you may find yourself boarding an Olympic Air flight rather than one marked Aegean.

Lounges and the website

Aegean Airlines runs business lounges in Athens, Thessaloniki and Larnaca. They are tied to the airline’s own hubs, so they are a feature of trips that pass through those three cities rather than of every airport on the map. The airline’s website is aegeanair.com, the address to use when you want to look at its flights and services directly.

Which routes does it fly?

Aegean Airlines flies nonstop from Athens International Airport to a wide spread of Greek islands and mainland cities, and to many of the major cities of Europe. Its network reaches from Alexandroupoli in the far corner of the country to Santorini in the Aegean.

Greek domestic destinations

From Athens, Aegean flies nonstop to Alexandroupoli, Chania, Chios, Corfu, Heraklion, Ioannina, Kavala, Kefalonia, Kos, Lemnos, Mykonos, Mytilene, Rhodes, Samos, Santorini and Thessaloniki. That list takes in Cretan towns, Ionian islands, Dodecanese islands and northern mainland cities, so one airline touches very different corners of Greece.

Other carriers fly some of the same routes from the same airport. Sky Express operates nonstop flights from Athens to many destinations, including Alexandroupoli, Astypalaia, Chania, Chios, Corfu, Heraklion, Ikaria, Kalymnos, Karpathos, Kastoria, Kefalonia, Kithira, Kos, Kozani, Lemnos, Milos, Mykonos, Mytilene, Naxos, Paros, Rhodes, Samos, Santorini, Skiathos, Syros, Thessaloniki and Zakynthos. Several islands, such as Corfu, Mykonos and Santorini, therefore appear on both airlines’ lists.

European cities from Athens

On the European side, Aegean flies nonstop from Athens to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Copenhagen, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, Helsinki, Lisbon, London-Heathrow, Madrid, Milan-Malpensa, Munich, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Prague, Rome-Fiumicino, Stockholm-Arlanda, Vienna and Zurich. It is a list that mixes capitals of the north, the Iberian peninsula and central Europe, which makes Athens a place where a Greek trip can be joined to a stay in another country on the same airline.

Flights from North America to Athens

The nonstop flights that cross the Atlantic to Athens are run by other airlines. American Airlines operates seasonal nonstop flights from Athens International Airport to Charlotte, Chicago-O’Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, New York-JFK and Philadelphia. United Airlines operates seasonal nonstop flights to Chicago-O’Hare, Newark and Washington-Dulles.

Emirates operates nonstop flights from Athens to Newark, and Norse Atlantic Airways operates seasonal nonstop flights to New York-JFK. In Canada, Air Canada and Air Transat each operate seasonal nonstop flights to Montréal-Trudeau and Toronto-Pearson. Aegean Airlines is not among the carriers listed on these transatlantic routes, so for an American traveler it is the airline for the connections inside Greece and Europe.

What else should you know before you book?

Before booking, the useful things to sort out are which airline actually flies your island, where you will change planes, and whether your route touches a hub with a lounge. Aegean covers a great deal, but it does not cover everything, and that is where a little checking pays off.

Check which airline serves your island

Aegean flies from Athens to Mykonos, Santorini, Corfu, Rhodes, Kos, Chania, Heraklion and Kefalonia, among others. But if you are headed to Naxos, Paros, Milos, Skiathos or Zakynthos, the nonstop flights from Athens named for these islands are operated by Olympic Air, the Aegean subsidiary, and Sky Express also flies several of them.

Islands such as Astypalaia, Kalymnos, Syros, Kastoria and Kozani appear on Sky Express’s list from Athens and not on Aegean’s. Matching the island to the airline before you search saves time, since the carrier changes from one destination to the next.

Hubs and connections

Because Athens and Thessaloniki are the two hubs, many trips pass through one of them. The secondary hubs, Chania, Heraklion, Kalamata, Larnaca and Rhodes, are also airports where the airline bases part of its operation, so those towns show up as starting points as well as destinations. Larnaca is the one name on the list that lies outside Greece, which is a reminder that the carrier’s reach extends past the national borders it is named for.

Lounges and the alliance

If a lounge matters to you, the airline has business lounges in Athens, Thessaloniki and Larnaca. Those are the three places to plan a layover around. Star Alliance membership is the other thing to weigh when you are linking flights on different airlines into a single journey. When you are ready to look at timetables and booking options, the airline’s own site is aegeanair.com.

Good to know before you go

The U.S. State Department rates Greece Level 1: Exercise Normal Precautions.

Greece uses the euro, and an airline ticket is the one large expense that you settle before you leave home. Once you land in Athens, the same airport that handles Aegean’s flights to the islands also receives the seasonal nonstops from the United States and Canada, so a long-haul arrival and a domestic connection can happen in the same terminal city. Greece is in the European Union, and its islands are spread across several seas, so it is worth matching each island to the right carrier on the day you plan the route.