Aegean Airlines Set to Launch Athens-Manchester Service

Airlines Airports May 14, 2013 Staff

Greek carrier Aegean Airlines is launching non-stop service between Athens International Airport Eleftherios Velizelos and Manchester Airport on Saturdays and Mondays on May 25.

Flights on the route are now available for booking, with prices starting from £209 ($320.60) one-way including taxes. For more information and to book, visit www.aegeanair.com.

An Airbus A320 of Aegean Airlines disembarks its passengers at Mykonos National Airport, served by the carrier multiple times daily with 25-minute flights from Athens

Aegean Airlines’ schedule on the route will see its flight departing from Athens International Airport Eleftherios Velizelos (IATA code ATH) at 6:15 p.m. on Mondays and Saturdays, touching down at Manchester Airport (MAN) at 8:20 p.m. local time.

In the other direction, Aegean Airlines’ flight departs MAN at 9:05 p.m., landing at ATH at 2:50 a.m. the following morning, local time.

“This route means that passengers visiting Athens on business or leisure can now fly direct from Manchester. It also provides an efficient connection for passengers continuing their journey to the Greek islands, enabling them to travel with the same airline for their entire journey,” says Ken O’Toole, chief commercial officer for Manchester Airports Group.

Aegean Airlines, Greece's largest airline at the time of the announcement on Februuary 22, 2010 of its proposed merger with Olympic Air, operated an all-jet fleet of 32 aircraft. Aegean's fleet included four Airbus A321-200s, 18 A320s, four soon-to-be-returned Boeing 737-400s and six Avro RJ100s. In this photograph, one of AZegfean's A321-200s takes off from Toulouse Blagnac airport, where most of the Airbus final-assembly lines are located

In this photograph, one of Aegean Airlines’ A321-200s takes off from Toulouse Blagnac airport, where most of the Airbus final-assembly lines are located

Adds O’Toole: “This service will also offer great opportunities for holiday makers as well as people traveling between Manchester and Greece on business. There is also a large community of Greek students in Manchester, so this new route will provide a quicker and easier way of traveling home for them as they can now travel direct from their local airport.”

Aegean Airlines, a member of the Star Alliance, is Greece’s largest full-service airline. It carried 6.5 million passengers in 2011.

The airline operates an all-Airbus A320-family fleet of 24 Airbus A320s, four A321s and two A319s.

In 2012, Aegean was ranked ‘Best Regional Airline Europe’ in the Skytrax annual worldwide survey of more than 18 million airline passengers.