Aegean Air rebuts Olympic Istanbul route concerns
ATHENS, Sept 22 (Reuters) – Aegean Airlines, Greece’s largest carrier by passengers, on Tuesday rejected concerns from rival Olympic Air that an expansion of Aegean’s route network to Istanbul was handled incorrectly by the domestic aviation authority.
Olympic Air, created after the privatisation of Greece’s loss-making Olympic Airlines, is set to start flying Oct. 1.
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Last week, Olympic Air’s new owner, Marfin Investment Group (MIG), questioned Aegean’s designation by Greece’s civil aviation authority (YPA) to service the Athens-Istanbul route.
However, Aegean Airlines Vice Chairman Eftyhios Vassilakis told reporters on Tuesday that there was ‘no secret, no under the table deal’.
He said Aegean had openly pursued permissioning for the route to Istanbul for eight years and that YPA, which had the discretion to designate a second carrier apart from Olympic since 1996, did so in 2004.
Since then Aegean had been trying to get a slot at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, finally achieving the goal in May this year. After it launched flights on Sept. 9 this year, the lowest one-way fare has dropped to 65 euros from 136 euros.
Vassilakis also told reporters the government’s tender of state-subsidised routes should have been frozen and not cancelled because of the Oct. 4 national election.
The tender by YPA encompasses a total of 24 commercially unviable routes, most to remote islands, guaranteeing state subsidies for the servicing carriers.
‘It would have been better to freeze the process and have the new government assess the submitted offers,’ Vassilakis said.
The cancellation of the tender leaves a void, practically meaning that the servicing will continue to be done by Olympic until the end of November, at least.
Aegean has carried out test flights and submitted offers to service 17 mainly island destinations with AVRO RJ 100 112-seat jets and ATR 72 88-seat planes.
The routes include the islands of Kalymnos, Ikaria, Astypalaia, Skiathos, Skyros, Samos, Chios, Lesvos, Karpathos and Kythera, providing flights from Athens and Thessaloniki.
(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos; editing by Simon Jessop) Keywords: AEGEANAIR COMPETITION/ ATTN EDITOR
(george.georgiopoulos@reuters.com; +30210 3311813; Reuters Messaging:george.georgiopoulos.reuters.com@reuters.net)
November 9th, 2009 at 4:21 am
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