Athens Airport Hosts Third ACES Event for Aviation Family

Athens International Airport CEO Yiannis Paraschis, at the opening of the 3rd ACES – Athens Symposium.

More than 140 top executives from air transport, the financial sector and the tourism industry attended the 3rd Airport Chief Executives’ Symposium (ACES – Athens) last week, an Athens International Airport (AIA) initiative hosted in the Greek capital annually.

Panel 1 – “Are hubs serving the destination?” – Angela Gittens, Director General ACI World; Jost Lammers, CEO, Budapest Airport; Thierry Ligonniere, Chief Operating Officer, ANA – Portuguese Airports; and Declan Collier, CEO, London City Airport.

Through the ACES symposium AIA aims to strengthen the connection between aviation/airports and the economy of the destinations they operate in and also launch initiatives to strengthen Athens as a tourism destination.

The main subjects discussed at this year’s ACES – Athens included the strategic topic of hub airports serving the destination and the O&D strategy vs hubbing and recent developments on the EU Aviation Package.

Keynote speakers of this year’s ACES, included Angela Gittens, Director General ACI World, and Olivier Jankovec, Director General ACI Europe, who “set the scene” of the world aviation and referred to the ever changing conditions and challenges in the global aviation sector.

Moreover, Dr. Stefan Schulte, CEO, Fraport AG, gave a keynote speech and referred to the privatization of 14 of Greece’s regional airports. It is reminded that Frankfurt-based Fraport was named as the preferred bidder to lease and run 14 local airports in leading tourist destinations jointly with Greek energy giant Copelouzos.

According to Dr.Schulte, Greece’s airport deal with Fraport is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2016.

During the symposium and in the context of the initiatives undertaken each year for the promotion of Athens, Mr Paraschis gave guests a sneak peek of the new, inspired campaign for the Greek capital named Speak AΘenian. Be an AΘenian.

The campaign will be launched in the next few weeks by AIA and Marketing Greece and Athens will go viral via social media and the hastag #ImAnAthenian.