Aegean Airlines chief operating officer Antonis Simigdalas has to rummage among framed certificates stacked by his desk to find the Greek regional’s independent air-carrier licence (ACL), the first issued in Greece. A man in a hurry, the airline executive has had no time to mount the document on his Athens office wall.
When issued in 1992, Greek ACL No. 1 permitted then-Aegean Aviation to operate air-taxi service for up to 14 passengers, but subsequent European deregulation permitted the fledgling carrier to grow rapidly. Now a “proper” scheduled carrier and the largest private operator in Greece, Aegean Airlines has flown head-to-head against flag carrier Olympic Airways since May 1999. The airline has grown to take a claimed 40 percent of the Greek market, flying 15 aircraft on 28 routes to 28 destinations, the young operator’s dynamism winning it the 1999 best Greek private airline award and third place in the 2000-2001 European Regions Airline Association (ERA) Airline of the Year competition.
After two years of rapid growth during which it acquired two other local operators, Aegean is rationalizing its fleet and route network while waiting for the delayed sale of Olympic Airways and its regional-airline subsidiary, Olympic Aviation. While that privatization should provide more opportunities, it remains a source of frustration for Simigdalas, because of what he refers to as the Greek government’s hesitancy to adopt the provisions of European Union law. “We have been treated totally unfairly in a market with grotesque fare and capacity distortions and government interventions,” said the Aegean COO.
