Ellinair Celebrates 5th Anniversary Where it All Began: Thessaloniki

Ellinair Commercial Director Stavros Daliakas, Fraport Greece Executive Director Commercial & Business Development George Vilos, Ellinair President Ioannis Mouzenidis, Ellinair CEO Thanos Paschalis, Thessaloniki’s former mayor Yannis Boutaris and the airline’s flight attendants.

Ellinair, a Mouzenidis Group airline, on Wednesday celebrated its fifth anniversary in the aviation industry with an event, held jointly with Fraport Greece, in the destination where it all began: Thessaloniki.

“Mouzenidis Group has strong ties with the city of Thessaloniki and its people,” the airline’s CEO, Thanos Paschalis, said during the event, which saw the attendance of senior executives of Ellinair and Fraport Greece, many local tourism professionals and journalists.

Ellinair is based in Thessaloniki and started flight operations on February 19, 2014, with the launch of its Thessaloniki-Kyiv route (flight ELB200). The airline launched activities carrying out both scheduled and charter flights.

In 2018, five years later, the airline surpassed the one million passenger mark for the first time. Its destination network exceeds 40 cities.

“Through Ellinair, we connect Thessaloniki with domestic and international destinations, analyzing and choosing our strategy based on the needs of the traveling public,” Paschalis said.

On his part, the airline’s commercial director, Stavros Daliakas, referred to the activities of Mouzendis Group, Ellinair’s flight program and plans.

“Our flights and their frequencies will soon increase,” Daliakas said.

Fraport Greece Applauds Thessaloniki, Ellinair

According to Fraport Greece data, Thessaloniki’s airport last year welcomed 6.7 million passengers, while growth in the first five months of 2019 is on a positive pace.

The Thessaloniki airport is one of the 14 airports that Fraport Greece manages and operates.

“Thessaloniki is our flagship airport, it is the largest that we manage (in Greece),” said Fraport Greece Executive Director Commercial & Business Development George Vilos during the event.

As underlined by Vilos, with the completion of the airport’s new terminal and infrastructure upgrade, in 2021 Thessaloniki will have an airport that will be comparable to many international airports abroad.

Referring to Ellinair, Vilos noted that the Greek airline was its strategic partner.

For the first five months of 2019, Ellinair has already recorded a 10 percent increase in passenger traffic to the airports under Fraport Greece’s management.

Ellinair’s summer schedule.

Ellinair Senior Marketer Natassa Tzikou with the airline’s flight attendants.

Last year, Ellinair in total operated 8,342 flights to Greece, offering 1,334,604 seats – recording an increase of 30 percent compared to 2017 – and carried a total of 1,043,984 passengers (an increase of 32 percent compared to 2017).

Ellinair has a staff of 320 people, is present in all global distribution systems (GDS) and has interline agreements with more than 250 carriers.

The Mouzenidis Group, which mainly focuses on the offering of specialized tourism services, products and solutions, consists of five companies and 18 brand names. The Group’s main company is Mouzenidis Travel. Other companies include BOMO Hotels, which currently manages eight hotels; Ellinair airline; the Enigma shopping center in Halkidiki; Grecodom, a real estate company and other companies offering religious tourism and conference tourism services.