Creating a financially successful flag carrier has long been an issue for Greece. However, despite decades of economic challenges and external pressures, AEGEAN has grown into one of Europe’s leading airlines. Lee Cross went to Athens to find out more

AEGEAN Airbus A320neo, SX-NEJ (c/n 11384) blasts out of its Athens base

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In May 2024, AEGEAN celebrated its 25th anniversary. The company has come a long way from its initial operations with two Avro RJ100s hopping between Athens, Heraklion and Thessaloniki.

Indeed, during its 25 years of operations, AEGEAN has been one of the most consistently profitable airlines in Europe, despite facing numerous challenges along the way, including the near decade-long Greek economic crisis.

“There’s no big secret to our success,” Yiannis Rasoglou, AEGEAN’s network planning and airline partnerships director, explained in an exclusive interview with Airliner World at the carrier’s headquarters in Athens. “It’s a combination of the careful steps swe have taken over the years in terms of our expansion with consistent focus on KPIs, passenger experience, as well as the internal culture of the airline where we co-operate in an efficient manner. Through this, we manage to be more effective in everything we do and more adaptable to any changes.” This success continued in 2024, with strong results in both passenger numbers and profits. In total, the airline carried 16.3 million passengers, representing a 6% increase over the previous year, driven by strong demand from both inbound and outbound tourism, with an average load factor of 82.5%.

Full-year earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) reached €405.3m, with a net profit of €129.9m. These financial results were the second highest in the airline’s history in terms of earnings after tax, despite the “significant restrictions and challenges faced” the airline said.

Moving into the first quarter of 2025, AEGEAN has continued this upward trend, delivering EBITDA of €43.8m, up from €33.2m a year ago. This was aided by an 8% increase in passenger numbers to 3.1 million. Meanwhile, international traffic increased by approximately 12%, with average load factors across both international and domestic flights at around 80.6%.

Solving seasonality

These numbers have been assisted in part by the gradual extension of the tourist season in Athens and Thessaloniki, two of the airline’s biggest markets and those with the most consistent demand. Tourism is a key economic driver in Greece, accounting for more than a quarter of the country’s economic output; however, it has suffered from seasonal fluctuations for years.

Self-made Greek entrepreneur Theodoros Vassilakis purchased Aegean Aviation in 1994 and set about creating an airline to rival the flag carrier Olympic Airways

ALL IMAGES AEGEAN AIRLINES UNLESS STATED

For some time, AEGEAN has attempted to mitigate this seasonality through a targeted investment plan.