TRIP REPORT: Aegean, Larnaca - Belgrade via Athens

TRIP REPORT

Written by Nemjee

Good morning everyone and welcome to my trip report!

I decided to go for a short break to Cyprus. Luckily vaccinated passengers from Serbia are allowed in as long as they fill out their Cyprus Flight Pass form online. Cyprus accepts all vaccines including Sputnik and Sinopharm.

About a year ago, Aegean revised their network when they moved their night wave of departures by around 1 to 2 hours. This allowed them to revise their BEG timetable by re-scheduling their evening flights from around 17-18.00 to 19.15. This gives you a whole day in Belgrade while your arrival to LCA is now moved to one in the morning.

I did not make a trip report for the first part of the trip as it was dark, and our flight was delayed by over an hour. However, I did find out the A320 that arrived from Athens carried 158 passengers which is a LF of 91%. Our flight on the other hand wasn't as successful as the LF was around 60% with 4 passengers in business class.

Welcome to Larnaca Airport

Air Serbia's flight to Belgrade was departing at exactly the same time as us. I found out their LF on that flight was around 70%. Unfortunately, that Monday morning flight ended as it was introduced only during the busy summer months.

Air Serbia to Belgrade, parked next to S7 A320neo heading to Novosibirsk.

Cabin of our A321neo. We were in total 175 passengers on this flight.

Old LCA terminal with its bus gates.

Some 20 minutes after take-off we were handed out a snack box. Unlike TK which puts a cup of water and juice in your box, Aegean has a full drink service passing through the cabin.

NEO family includes a new cabin, and the seat is extremely comfortable and definitely an improvement compared to what they have on their older planes.

A321neo doesn't have any screens but Aegean has introduced an app to which you connect, and which has pretty much everything you might need. They have international newspaper, games, destination guides... and an interactive map as shown above.

We parked at gate A7 and our plane was scheduled to operate another flight to Cyprus and back. Lots of widebodies at ATH, besides the ones you can see on the right, there is a DL A333 on the left going to ATL and on the other side there was a QR 788, AC B789, AC B77W and shortly after Aeroflot arrived with its B77W.

ATH is a rather ugly airport. Terminal inside was extremely overcrowded when we landed, there are maybe three 3 restaurants and bars plus a Starbucks. Most of the plugs that were placed in the seating area did not work and since there were too many people in the terminal, many were forced to sit in the area by the gates.

I crossed paths with Air Serbia once again. What I found odd is that they play their old ad in the gate. I think it would make much more sense to play it in other parts of the airport where there are people who did not book their flights with them.

We flew to Belgrade on a 12-year-old A320. The cabin inside was very well maintained. LF on today's flight was around 80%.

Service was similar to what we got from LCA however this time around I chose the vegetarian option.

Flight to Belgrade was rather uneventful and after one hour and twenty minutes we landed.

Weather that day was atrocious, cloudy, rainy and cold (12 degrees).

Overall, it's good to see that Aegean did not use COVID as an excuse to cut their traditionally good onboard product. Their crew is always friendly, polite and well-groomed. In my opinion, their biggest problem in the future will be ATH. The airport experience is nowhere near the one you have when flying with Aegean. With their NEO fleet growing, they are going to be introducing a superior product compared to many in Europe. In terms of overall product, I think Aegean is among the best airlines in Europe.

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