Aviation

Six airline companies have expressed interest in the tender for the operation of the 24 state-subsidized domestic air routes to remote Greek islands (agones grammes) for the four-year period 2013-2016. According to the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority, competing carriers are Olympic Air, Aegean Airlines, Astra Airlines, Sky Express, Aeroland and newcomer Minoan Airlines.

Athens International Airport (AIA) last month launched three incentives to support airlines and help maintain/increase passenger traffic for this year’s summer season.

“Your repeated strikes, walkouts and “white strikes” are killing tourism and have brought all domestic tourism businesses to the verge of destruction,” the Pan-Hellenic Federation of Tourism Enterprises (GEPOET) stressed last month in a letter to the Greek Air Traffic Controllers’ Association.

Athens experienced a 4.67 percent decrease in international arrivals in September compared to the same month in 2010, according to recent figures released by the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE).

Danish Ambassador to Greece Tom Nørring (left) held a media briefing on Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) at his residence in Athens last month. SAS, which flies directly from Athens to Copenhagen, redefined its existing partnership with Cruise Baltic and the organization Wonderful Copenhagen and now offers a new and innovative holiday proposal to Greek tour operators and Greek travelers.

Olympic Air and KLM signed a code share agreement last month that entitled the airlines to market flights between Amsterdam and Athens for connecting traffic under each other’s flight numbers.

Qatar Airways was recently named “Airline of the Year” for its outstanding in-flight product and operational excellence, at the annual Skytrax World Airline Awards 2011.

“We are very pleased that Athens is one of the six destinations of our summer program… Transavia.com will offer travel to Amsterdam at a reasonable and attractive price, accompanied by a high level of service,” the commercial director of Dutch budget carrier transavia.com, William Hondius, said during a press conference in Athens in late June.

On 27 May, Turkish Airlines launched a four-times weekly route between Istanbul and Thessaloniki in an attempt to boost tourism between Turkey and Greece.

Qatar Airways was honored once again for its Business Class and earned premier accolades at two separate award ceremonies in Dubai.