What happened to ATH London? Last year due to the increased capacity for the Olympics I flew London to ATH every weekend without a miss. This is year it is impossible, most prices start at 600-700 EUR which doesn’t exactly leave any chance for anyone to go for the weekend!
A series of unfortunate events proves how badly the airline industry is managed, since Hellas Jet ceased (I lost 80k airmiles on that one!) all Olympic flights are fully booked and so is BA. Easyjet moved all their London to ATH flights in the afternoon and there is absolutely no charters to ATH any more.
Compared to a few years ago when Virgin was flying as well, the capacity on this route has dropped almost 25% while demand has probably risen 20%!
How long will it take for this to sort itself out? How long does the LHR to ATH flights have to be double the price of LHR to Johannesburg! Who is going to be the smart guy to come in and make some money on this route? ....
London Heathrow LHR - Athens ATH
nope, not any more, neither does monarch...neither does hellas jet, neither does virgin, and now that easyjet has no evening flights out of LHR and stopped their morning flights out of ATH the capacity of the route has dropped by 60% in the last 3 years...while demand has rocketed...
the only alternative for regular users of the route is stopovers with Alitalia, Lufthansa or Swiss, but the demand is pushing prices higher than the ones to Sydney...
I guess we are paying the price for the fact that Hochtief (the German developer and part owner of ATH) needs to get their money back in a smaller period of time than originally thought, therefore making ATH one of the most expensive in Europe. Another, beautiful legacy of politicians with no vision...To be fair to Hochtief they are offering freebies to the airlines but nobody seems to be interested so far...
it really doesn't make any sense...the european airline market is ridiculously slow and inefficient in filling in the gaps, especially when politicians are invloved...
the only alternative for regular users of the route is stopovers with Alitalia, Lufthansa or Swiss, but the demand is pushing prices higher than the ones to Sydney...
I guess we are paying the price for the fact that Hochtief (the German developer and part owner of ATH) needs to get their money back in a smaller period of time than originally thought, therefore making ATH one of the most expensive in Europe. Another, beautiful legacy of politicians with no vision...To be fair to Hochtief they are offering freebies to the airlines but nobody seems to be interested so far...
it really doesn't make any sense...the european airline market is ridiculously slow and inefficient in filling in the gaps, especially when politicians are invloved...
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B744skipper
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Maybe it is time to start Luchtzak airlines, pull some B752's or/and B762's out of the desert and start flying this (and other?) routes. When you say that there is enough demand, but insufficient supply then Luchtzak airlines doesn't need to start with rock-bottom fares but with fares with a (little) profit margin in them, and even could post a small profit.paps wrote:it really doesn't make any sense...the european airline market is ridiculously slow and inefficient in filling in the gaps
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website-info
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thanks for that EPS, bummer is Malev dont do Fridays DUB to ATH and the other new flight from HEL to ATH either...price turns out resonable if you go on a Thursday (mind you still around 400euro!) if you link it with ryanair from LGW or LHR or even STN but they stop flying them on the 29th of September...
VEX is an option but again getting from LHR to ATH should not cost 400 alltogether and the timing of the links does not suit weekend travel....
I dunno, maybe I'm asking too much, too cheap. Maybe the market is moving into offering different things than what I need and what I'm used to...
I find it hard to believe though that weekend travel between 2 cities that total close to 15m people that are 3hrs flight time apart is not possible all of a sudden unless you pay 3 and 4 times more than what it has always cost on average in the last 10 years and spend your nights in between airports and link flights the wrong direction....
What is going to happen when the barrell hits $100 then?....
VEX is an option but again getting from LHR to ATH should not cost 400 alltogether and the timing of the links does not suit weekend travel....
I dunno, maybe I'm asking too much, too cheap. Maybe the market is moving into offering different things than what I need and what I'm used to...
I find it hard to believe though that weekend travel between 2 cities that total close to 15m people that are 3hrs flight time apart is not possible all of a sudden unless you pay 3 and 4 times more than what it has always cost on average in the last 10 years and spend your nights in between airports and link flights the wrong direction....
What is going to happen when the barrell hits $100 then?....
"Maybe it is time to start Luchtzak airlines, pull some B752's or/and B762's out of the desert and start flying this (and other?) routes"
I think it is certainly time for this route, looks like the politicians will finally let Olympic Airlines die a sorry death like it deserves to. This should pave the way for some proper airlines to take over.
It turns out Olympic have been having trouble servicing their planes so they are resorting to last minute dodgy charter hires to fly some of their flights...People are finding it scary to have to book flights that eventually get cancelled or flown using planes of questionable quality.
Starting out for a new airline on this route could make a killing even now at the end of summer since nobody knows if olympic will be around by the time their flight is about to depart...
Also, I do have an email list containing about 80 names of people that are on this route every weekend!....
I think it is certainly time for this route, looks like the politicians will finally let Olympic Airlines die a sorry death like it deserves to. This should pave the way for some proper airlines to take over.
It turns out Olympic have been having trouble servicing their planes so they are resorting to last minute dodgy charter hires to fly some of their flights...People are finding it scary to have to book flights that eventually get cancelled or flown using planes of questionable quality.
Starting out for a new airline on this route could make a killing even now at the end of summer since nobody knows if olympic will be around by the time their flight is about to depart...
Also, I do have an email list containing about 80 names of people that are on this route every weekend!....
Perhaps it may be due to the flight time of 4 hours and the fact that a lot of tourists don't even fly into Athens directly.
There will still be a demand for businessmen and people living in Athens (approx. 3.5 million) .
As the airline industry is suffering from increased fuel costs and competition, maybe the airlines no longer flying to Athens have decided to make more profit on shorter flights (i.e perform more rotations to i.e Costa Brava which is 2 hours from London).
There will still be a demand for businessmen and people living in Athens (approx. 3.5 million) .
As the airline industry is suffering from increased fuel costs and competition, maybe the airlines no longer flying to Athens have decided to make more profit on shorter flights (i.e perform more rotations to i.e Costa Brava which is 2 hours from London).
I dont think they make more money on the costa brava, simply because there is more than 25 flights a day in the 3 airports in the area so I usually pay to Malaga from LGW,LTN or STN less than 150 euro! ...while the ATH flight (which is actually 3-3.5 hrs) has at the moment only 6 flights a day and with most people trying to avoid Olympic it really is 4!...(with only one evening one!) the ATH one now goes for a minimum of 400 euro...surely there is room for more capacity!!!!!
You are probably right in what you are saying but I dont think its worked for them, I find it hard to believe they make more money that way...
You are probably right in what you are saying but I dont think its worked for them, I find it hard to believe they make more money that way...
latest update for this...things are getting really bad every day and it looks like they'll get even worse...
Olympic today is flying only one of the flights each way, therefore with plane capacity of around 95% with the spill over effect of passengers to the following days, prices are really rocketing! Even with people avoiding London due to recent events the route is madly busy
A nice weekend away to ATH is now selling at the bargain price of 650EUR!
I read somewhere that ryanair doesnt fly to ATH because Easyjet doesnt fly to Ireland, if that is true we are really doomed...nobody will ever pick up this overcpacity....
Olympic today is flying only one of the flights each way, therefore with plane capacity of around 95% with the spill over effect of passengers to the following days, prices are really rocketing! Even with people avoiding London due to recent events the route is madly busy
A nice weekend away to ATH is now selling at the bargain price of 650EUR!
I read somewhere that ryanair doesnt fly to ATH because Easyjet doesnt fly to Ireland, if that is true we are really doomed...nobody will ever pick up this overcpacity....