Ellinair Announces New Thessaloniki-Baku Route, Increases Fleet

Mouzenidis Group airline Ellinair on Monday announced the launch of a new route connecting Thessaloniki with Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and the addition of two more Airbus A320 aircraft to its fleet.

The addition of Baku in the airline’s summer 2020 schedule, expands the number of destinations it serves from Greece, which includes Moscow, St. Petersburg and Volgograd in Russia; Kiev, Lviv, Odessa and Kharkiv in Ukraine; Warsaw, Katowice, Krakow in Poland; Bucharest and Cluj Napoca in Romania; and Tbilisi, Georgia and Belgrade in Serbia.

Addition of A320 Aircraft

Ellinair has began increasing its fleet as it recently took delivery of an Airbus A320 on lease from Carlyle Aviation Partners, a multi-strategy aviation investment manager.

The airline will receive another Airbus A320 this April, leased from DAE Capital (Dubai Aerospace Enterprise), one of the largest aircraft leasing companies in the world, headquartered in Dubai, and this way bring its fleet to 6 aircraft (2 Airbus 319 and 4 Airbus 320).

“The new year has started with the best prospects, with the addition of two new modern aircraft into our fleet,” Ellinair Commercial Director Stavros Daliakas said.

In 2019 Ellinair’s capacity reached 83.4 percent, 6,555 flights were carried out, airline seats surpassed the 1 million mark at 1,024,208, and it flew 854,585 passengers. Forecasts for 2020 remain optimistic, with capacity expected to rise further to 87.2 percent.

“All of the company’s indicators improved in 2019 and we believe that 2020 will be a positive year, supporting the Greek economy and Greek tourism,” Daliakas said.

Ellinair links Thessaloniki with direct flights to Baku, Moscow, Kiev, St. Petersburg, Mineralnye Vody, Krasnodar, Rostov, Samara, Lviv, Katowice, Tbilisi, Odessa, Kharkiv and Volgograd; Heraklion with Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Warsaw, Katowice, Bucharest, Cluj Napoca, Odessa, Kharkiv, Lviv and Belgrade; Corfu with Moscow, Kiev, Zakynthos and St. Petersburg, Araxos; and Athens with Moscow.

With regard to its domestic network, the airline connects Athens and Heraklion with Thessaloniki.

A subsidiary of Mouzenidis Group, Ellinair is based in Thessaloniki and started operating in 2013 to meet the increased needs Mouzenidis Travel had in airline seats. In 2015, scheduled flights were also added to its routes and the airline now travels from five bases to 42 destinations.