just a small trip report on my recent flight to Lanarca via Athens from Berlin. It seems like Olympic has a build in delay function:
- departure form Berlin: 2h late - they were announcing 1,5h, but in fact they were 2h. I do not know what airlines consider when they talk about delays, but the plane left the finger in TXL 2h late. Because of a "shortage on cabin crew in ATH" as the pilot has explained
- departure from ATH to LCA: 35 min late
- departure form ATH to TXL: 30 min late
for the flight from LCA to ATH at 3:50 am we were also 30 mins late but this time it was a passenger incident: a woman in the last row (I was in the second last) was not able to sit still. She was constantly fasten and unfasten her seat belt and discussing with the f/a. I did not understand why. I think she felt uncomfortable because it was seat 21A in a B717-200 of Olympic: no window and tremendously loud engines.
Then she moved forward after the cabin door was already closed. she was sent back by the cabin crew at the front. She moved back, but immediately she was moving forwards and then the copilot came out discussing with her. Then she moved backwards with complaining. I asked her what her problem is and where she is from. etc. She offered to me to take some from her bottle Smirnov she has emptied one third already. I took the bottle (without drinking of course) and asked her a lot of things to distract her. Actually I was fearing that she will be thrown out of the plane and this would have resulted in: get her baggage out. And this would have resulted in: a long delay.
But this was too late, the captain has decided to leave her back, so the plane was moving back to the parking position (we were on the way to the runway until this has happened).
Some ground personnel was coming into the a/c and the woman was asked to leave the plane what she did. I gave the Smirnov bottle to the f/a and actually he wanted to follow the woman to give her the bottle back. I was trying to convince this guy that if she gets the bottle again, it would be worse for her. Other passengers were also asking him to rather keep the bottle ... he was asking then the captain to keep the bottle and empty it in the sink - see the photo
His problem was that the woman could say that her bottle was stolen but actually I told him that I have stolen her bottle 
actually we had luck, because the woman did not check in any baggage, so this was a rather short incident. Despite from this little excitement, the flight was OK.
My comments on Olympic
- nice cabin on B734: they have even ceiling mounted CTRs, showing some average stuff (sketches and a report about black-jack card counting) and they distribute electric headphones.
- nice meal even on short flights like LCA-ATH (see pict)
- the use 734 and 717: they have the larger windows than Airbus as mentioned on my other post on window size
- ATH is a somewhat nice airport. I did not find a particular good spotting location but I can recommend to have the window bar-like seats at the McDo in the first floor. there you have a quite good view - the planes just take off directly in front of this place because the runway runs in parallel to the building's front. But I doubt that you can make good photos because the window glass is highly reflective.
However, I would not recommend flying Olympic because to me they seem like they have problems with being on time. being 3 times of 4 late sucks. actually I have missed the bus when I was arriving at LCA later than 22:00 so I was forced to organise a taxi.
so far - I bit longer report than expected. hope this was interesting still.
- lr.
1. f/a with smirnov bottle while asking for dumping the vodka away
2. OA meal even on short routes
3. earphones on B734
4. very long and lonely gangway at around 6 am in ATH
5. sunset shortly before descent to ATH
