Aegean Accepts ‘Airline of the Year’ Award
Athens-based private carrier Aegean Airlines won high honors at this year’s European Regions Airline Association’s airline of the year awards. The 83 airlines of the association selected Aegean for its bronze Airline of the Year 2000/1award. Skyways, Sweden’s largest regional carrier, picked up the gold award.
The winner of the new silver award was Eurowings of Germany, one of the largest independent regional carriers in Europe
The independent panel of aviation journalists from throughout Europe based their decisions on a wide range of criteria, including financial growth, technical and operational achievements, fleet composition and network development, as well as passenger load factor, punctuality, marketing and business strategy, customer services and passenger perception.
The judges said they were pleased to name Aegean Airlines as Bronze Award winner in recognition of the company’s dynamism, persistence and fighting spirit in a difficult political environment. Despite incredible odds it achieved considerable passenger growth and financial success in only one year of commercial operations. It was unanimously regarded as “an airline destined to go far.”
Aegean Airlines’ general manager, Antonis Simigdalas, said the company now has a young modern fleet of six new Avro RJ100s and three ATR72s. As Greece’s biggest private carrier, Aegean flies 84 daily flights with both business and economy classes to 11 major domestic destinations.