Aegean: + 15% traffic and +24% international passengers in 2015

Aegean Airlines carried 24 percent more passengers on international flights in 2015, four times higher than the growth in total air arrivals to Greece last year (6 percent) confirming its contribution to tourism and the economy.

Greece’s main carrier had 1,537,849 more passengers last year than in 2014, reaching a total of 11,650,374, and posting annual growth of 15 percent on all flights.

Despite the rather weak domestic demand, there was a 7 percent rise in Aegean’s flights within Greece, offering even lower fares and significantly enhanced connectivity.

The company showed positive dynamics in all the key bases in Greece and Larnaca in Cyprus.

Significantly higher growth 

The main base of Athens, was the champion of the whole activity for the company with 15 new destinations. Doubling its external network in two years, it reached a total of 9.1 million passengers acting both as a final destination, but also as a interconnection hub for the islands, large and small, with new foreign markets that the airliner penetrates and invests in.

Athens and Heraklion and Rhodes showed a significantly higher growth rate than the overall market.

Athens was the big winner of 2015, with an impressive 28%, which was built from traditional markets such as France, Cyprus, Italy, Switzerland where Aegean now offers direct connection to many more cities but also from new markets such as Saudi Arabia, Norway and Iran that were added in 2015.

Furthermore, the company managed by enhancing direct connections and number of aircraft operating from Heraklion and Rhodes to overcome significant losses of these destinations from the Russian market (45%) and show positive traffic growth of 19% and 17% respectively.

Continuing efforts in 2016

Aegean CEO Dimitris Gerogiannis said: "2015 was another challenging year, however, AEGEAN and Olympic Air continued to invest and significantly expand its external network into new markets. We also purchased brand new Airbus A320 aircraft at a time when capital controls were imposed and banks were closed. We upgraded our online services with a new generation website and strengthened our loyalty program with new benefits and services for our passengers. We continued to support the internal transportation by even lower fares, even in July when the market froze. We continued to invest in educating, developing and rewarding our people, while having increased our personnel by 700 people since 2013, when we bought Olympic Airways, reaching a total of 2850 employees.

During 2016 efforts will continue in the same direction and with equal momentum. We look forward to stability that will allow unhindered arrival of visitors to the country and the Greek state to move forward, providing motives to investors, the necessary upgrades to infrastructure and regulatory authorities in the aviation industry."

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report