By Iro-Anna Mamakouka on January 16, 2014-Greek Reporter
The increase in tourism in Greece has led to significant changes in domestic and foreign air travel. This has encouraged foreign airline companies to invest in Greece and to add new routes, competing directly with Greek airline Aegean-Olympic.

Low cost carrier Ryanair, announced yesterday its intention to strengthen its presence in Greece by creating new bases in Athens and Thessaloniki in April, offering domestic and foreign services. Ryanair officials wasted no time in pointing the finger at Aegean-Olympic for the “domestic monopoly which harms Greece’s economy.” Furthermore they stated that “Athens does not fully services the flight needs,” and “because of the high prices, flight demand decreases”.

Ryanair is betting on Greece with really cheap tickets of 12 euros for Athens to Thessaloniki.

According to Aegean, “the creation of new bases in Athens and Thessaloniki confirms the existence of an extremely competitive market within the frame of European airlines. This is exactly the reason for which the two largest Greek airline companies, Aegean and Olympic Air, were merged. The merger happened in order for a Greek airline company to develop and operate effectively so that it could represent our country in the European market.”

Ryanair is expected to offer about 154 flights from Athens and 212 from Thessaloniki, per week. The company also claims that its new expansion plans will lead to the creation of more than 1,200 jobs at its new base in Athens.

Ryanair has condemned the EU Commission’s DG Transport for its ongoing politically biased application of the state aid rules. According to Ryanair, DG Transport announced yet another baseless state aid investigation into Ryanair’s agreement with Frankfurt Hahn Airport, an airport privately owned by Fraport. Ryanair stated this is now the 8th politically motivated investigation against a Ryanair airport �� 9th including Charleroi.

Ryanair’s Director of Legal & Regulatory Affairs, Jim Callaghan, said

“This investigation into the privately owned Hahn Airport, which has been a model for development of unutilised regional and secondary airports, makes it clear that DG Transport has no intention of fairly enforcing the state aid rules in air transport. It has repeatedly failed to take any action against blatant abuses of the state aid rules by national governments to protect their flag carrier airlines, such as the most recent EUR300 million “loan” to Alitalia, but is instead misusing the state aid rules in a politically motivated vendetta to block competition from low fares airlines at low cost regional and secondary airports like Frankfurt Hahn and Charleroi. Ryanair has today called on Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, to take immediate action to end DG Transport’s politically motivated enforcement of the state aid rules. It is high time that the Commission started to support the positive development of regional and secondary airports around Europe instead of misapplying the state aid rules to block this development, while turning a blind eye to the continuing illegal state subsidies being doled out to flag carriers such as Air France, Lufthansa, Olympic and Alitalia.”

© Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. Date posted: 19-Jun-08