In April 2024, Greece’s Aegean Airlines announced plans to acquire four A321LRs, which will usher in a new era for the airline. There’s now an update, as the airline has additionally announced plans to acquire two A321XLRs, and deliveries are imminent!
Continue reading: Cool: Aegean Plans Premium A321LRs & A321XLRs With Flat Beds
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
UK would be well served, heck B6 could code share and have mint service to ATH via EDI or LGW!
The range is not too short for a US flight to Athens with a refueling stop in Dublin or Shannon.
Kind of pointless and inconvenient to feature a stopover, when everyone else in the market can and does fly nonstop. SNN would be more efficient for pre-clearance but I doubt we'll see Aegean fly to the US like this.
It looks like the XLR on the map is at 5000 mi, which would put EWR/JFK (and BOS) in range at 4,956 (for EWR, less for the others) from ATH.
If A3 flies to EWR or other coast city, I'd fly them immediately.... until the bloggers ruined it.
Why on earth would they fly to the USA when they have so many underserved destinations with huge potential within 4-5-6 hours from their hubs? Long may they stay well away from transatlantic service, the overcapacity in that market, and the risks involved in competing with the cartel there. I look forward to flying Aegean to sub-saharan Africa by the end of the decade.
Looking at the places that are flown over in your map, I suspect they will not be taking the most direct routing on these services, so the extra range will probably still come in handy.
Maybe an Iceland flight would be nice too. I can't remember if they currently fly there, since I haven't flown them in ages.
Not that they should since it's hard to imagine they'd ever make money on it, but in theory could an XLR make it from Athens to New York City without any weight restrictions?
If an airline could make the range work I’m sure a summer Mykonos - NYC route would do great and they could charge quite a pretty penny
Having recently flown Etihad A321 fr9m Athens to Abu Dhabi…4.5 hr sector no meal service just a chicken sandwich…..and big queues down back whole flight for toilets…..no seat back IFE….not a major problem…..but there onboard wifi entertainment was very minimal.
Next day flew Emirates 777 to Bangkok…..way better experience!
So for me I will be avoiding long 321 flights…..whilst I’m sure it will be nice in biz on Aegean……economy will not be pleasant.
Would it though? 10 hours on a narrow body + limited rebooking options if things go wrong + more than likely non daily service doesn't sound very appealing to me
Maybe they will launch one-stop service to Melbourne via Singapore to service the VFR market? 😉
Speaking of cool, the way that Aegean shows the range of the A321 series tickles my brain
Via Bangkok please! Great airline. Been AEGEAN Gold since 2013 - great service, crew and reward tickets on Star Alliance - lits of space on SQ to Australia from Asia.
So you got a meal during the non-existent meal service?
I mean, stop booking economy if you don't want economy.
The pairing of Greece and India is a (pleasant) surprise. But I'm confused. Can someone please provide the reasoning for the Athens - Dehli, Athens - Mumbai routes? I get that Greece is a leisure destination overall, while India is a mix of business and leisure for airlines. Is the airline trying to grow the market between the two countries? Or is it looking to funnel traffic from it's further European destinations like the U.K. (with its large subcontinent diaspora) down to India, and vice versa?
India is literally the most populous country on the planet. Are you seriously wondering whether it can support 10 narrowbody flights per week to a major European capital?
I'm not the sort of person that gets triggered by that sort of thing, but would you have found it that unusual if they had introduced routes to e.g. Canada?
Not the worst idea. LON to ATH is a fairly long flight by inter-European standards - and given how large the point-to-point market is, I would imagine there would be some decent premium demand for a single premium frequency in the market that also allowed for US connections on B6 or others.
I'm not sure if Mykonos can handle wide body aircraft but I could definitely see United trying EWR to Mykonos or Santorini with a 767 next summer.
LOL....but you DID get triggered, my darling.
Are you SERIOUSLY conflating population with purchasing power? I think you are. Because India lags in that economic metric. Population means nothing without an economically hefty middle class, which is not yet developed to its full potential in India. And you don't need to be a travel analyst to know they are price-sensitive and leans towards lower priced carriers for domestic and international travel needs. You do realize the biggest carriers in India are all LCC, don't you? Of course you didn't know. Aegean is not a LCC, as evidenced by their investment in the premium cabin space. As for Canada, well like the U.K.it has a very big Indian diaspora. But that fact was unknown to you, I suppose. So calm down, because your weak 'riposte' - containing just ONE fact pertaining to population - is laughably shallow. You might as well have stated that night follows day..(Oh, Lord give me patience with such children...)
Good for them to capture traffic that is served by TK and the ME3. It's not a lot of capacity they are adding so they should be able to skim the juicy top of the market. Also the local carriers on the Origin are not giving great service, so they would offer the best direct flights.
Servin the US would be uncompetitive vs LH/LX connecting pax due to backtracking and for passengers with destination Greece, UA has a better catchment area filling up planes from their network.
They should not have any trouble filling up the planes from BOM and DEL with 138 daily pax that want to fly direct to ATH and connect domestically with a european style service.
Mumbai is full of rich people, with real estate dollar prices getting close to those in Europe. Delhi does not lack of wealthy either. Yes average wealth in India is low. But there's a concentration in majors cities. It's smart on Aegean's behalf as those markets are not served direct but vacationing in Greece is a great display of wealth and they don't need to rely on connections within India to fill up those flights.
Connecting in IST, DXB, DOH etc. to Greece is not particularly attractive as it adds 3+ hours to a relatively short journey. Flexibility to reach the smaller islands is limited.
I'm sure they will find a lot of people that would be happy to pay to fly direct from DEL or BOM to ATH and have an efficient onward connection to Greek islands. And with good service on top of that (not sure AI could compete if they wanted to). The value proposition is good and I'm sure there's enough market.
Aegean is designed to serve the Greek market and the numerous islands they have. Star Alliance already has connecting hubs with IST, FRA, ZRH, VIE. They don't need to add 150 pax per day via ATH. This service will serve Greece as a tourism destination.
I didn't get triggered, I just find it extremely odd!
It doesn't take advanced algebra to work out that India's population is about 3,500% higher than that of Canada. In other words, even if 96% of Indians are unable to afford flights to Europe, the remaining 4% is more than the entire population of Canada.
But it gets better - it looks like you somehow thought that I was talking about flights between India and Canada while I was obviously thinking of Aegean's perspective in adding new destinations from ATH (I'm going to assume that SKG and LCA won't be seeing intercontinental service anytime soon).
No reason to go into an in-depth argument about all this - I just think you're very confused!
@Barbarella, I agree with the thrust of your comment but whoever is flying in Y is likely to have a much more humane experience by breaking up the trip between Europe and the UAE/Oman/India/Sri Lanka etc with a connection at ATH/IST/AMM/CAI than doing 8-9+ hours from Northern or Western Europe. If they have to connect anyway (e.g. DUB-LHR-DEL or OPO-CDG-DEL versus OPO-ATH-DEL) there really is no contest!
Mid-haul to destinations east and south makes a lot more sense than TATL for A3.
A new J config with lie-flat seats is a big win.