TRIP REPORT: Aegean, Athens – Sarajevo via Skopje

TRIP REPORT

Written by Slobodan Delić

When Aegean announced their flights from Skopje to Sarajevo, I wondered whether this route is worth trying especially because at the time of the route opening announcement, an OW fare was exorbitant. My other thought was that opening this route at the beginning of October is destined to fail given it’s timetable and notorious fogs at Sarajevo Airport. But more about that at the end of this report ….

In early October I checked my OW options to Sarajevo, where I was born, and on 18th October 2023 the quoted fare for economy light (Aegean unlike Air Serbia offers its Gold members an extra free pc of luggage even when this is not provided in the lowest fare bracket so I had one piece of luggage in hold for free) was at around €85. I quickly jumped at the opportunity and booked my flight to Sarajevo via Skopje. The three weekly flights between Skopje and Sarajevo are operated under what is known as “seventh freedom” and uses the same equipment that flies six times a week from Athens to Skopje operated by Aegean’s fully owned turboprop subsidiary Olympic Air, successor of the once mighty Olympic Airlines established by Aristotle Onassis and sold for one Greek drachma back in mid 1970s to the Greek State upon the tragic loss of his son Alexander in a plane crash he piloted. It is interesting to read both about how Alexandros died and the conspiracy theory related to it, and how Olympic Airlines became a tool for subsequent Greek governments to lure votes in exchange for privileges granted in form of employment or free transport by the former airline. Finally, after two attempts at consolidation, Olympic Airlines was privatised to the MIG group in 2009 and became Olympic Air. In 2014 after lifting the EU free competition concerns and death of MIG owner, the company became part of the Aegean group, offering turboprop connections and routes guaranteed to Olympic by bilateral treaties.

The plane that operates this route is an ATR72-600. Aegean acquired ATR72 family aircraft for Olympic Air recently and they replaced the formerly owned Dash-8-400QRs. The airplane operating my flight had SX-OBN registration.

The Aegean business lounge at the non-Schengen departure section of Athens International Airport is a prime facility, among the best in the world. Have a look:

The plane leaves Athens in the afternoon and after approximately one hour and ten minutes reaches Skopje. Interestingly the cabin crew on this flight wore Aegean uniforms and offered standard Aegean short haul service consisting of a sandwich and selection of both cold and hot beverages for free.

I sat in seat 2D which provides descent comfort for a person of my build. Perhaps taller individuals would not be as happy.

The flight took off from the midpoint of runway 03L and after a few minutes turned northwest in an almost straight line towards Skopje. Here is a birds-eye view of Athens Airport’s north apron and runway 03R/21L.

Shortly after passing Thessaloniki and Kaimaktsalan (Kajmakčalan in Serbian transliteration famous for glorious battle in WWI that took place there and which opened a way to Serbian army to liberate Serbia) the plane took a sharp left turn towards Skopje and in a few minutes started descending. The flight reached Skopje on time and all but 5 passengers (from a total of about 30-35 passengers) ended their journey in Skopje. Here are a few photos of the Skopje apron upon arrival.

The five of us that were in transit were met by an airport attendant who showed us a way through to transit zone, first up the stairs then across the zone of gates 200s. Interestingly, there is no additional security check for arriving passengers from Athens in transit to Sarajevo. I opted to stay for approx.. 35 minutes at the airport business lounge which offers a nice and modern setup and fairly good choice of drinks, beverages, and some hot and finger food along with a selection of deserts.

The boarding gate for the flight to Sarajevo was 101 which is located at the lower (arrivals) level of the terminal building. After a quick walk to the airplane a completely new cabin crew welcomed passengers, this time about 60-65 of us in, surprise, Olympic Air uniforms. The captain remained the same as well as the female first officer. Upon take off in a northern direction, the airplane made a sharp clockwise turn of about 270 degrees and continued over northern Albania and Montenegro. Before reaching the point of descent over Jahorina mountain.

The cabin crew served what is typical for Olympic domestic flights - a glass of still water and a pack of cookies, Greek favourite “Papadopoulou gemista” very much like Air Serbia’s “noblice”.

The plane overflew the old part of Sarajevo towards Visoko, and after two counterclockwise turns of around 130 degrees in total above Kiseljak, the plane was aligned with runway 11 of Sarajevo International Airport. This procedure, typical for arrivals from southeastern and southern directions into Sarajevo Airport, is known for its turbulent nature due to southwesterly winds of rapidly changing directions and even occasional tailwinds making jet planes, and even more so turboprops, “dance” up and down, left and right while finding their way through a narrow valley surrounded by hills and Igman mountain towards the airport runway 11.

The day was windy in Athens, rather windy in Skopje and windy with rain showers in Sarajevo. Although at full capacity, the ATR lightly touched down exactly after an hours flight and after some rather abrupt braking action both by props and brakes, we vacated the runway via the unusual C taxiway and parked just after reaching full apron stop parallel to the terminal building next to the gate 5 air bridge.

By the time I passed passport control, picked up my luggage and rented car, the returning flight took off.

The flights from and to Skopje the next three days were cancelled due to strong southern winds. The approach for turboprops is tricky, in evenings even more so. Croatia Airlines also cancelled their evening flights while Air Serbia’s day flight on October 20th was cancelled before even taking off from Belgrade only to be replaced the next day by bigger A319 that took off from Sarajevo in direction 29 unlike most other flights that day. Scheduled to land and take off between 8 and 9 pm, when the airport is covered by fog during most days in November and December, these flights from Skopje will, my guess is, often be cancelled. Time will tell.

According to the existing timetable, flying in the opposite direction from Sarajevo to Athens via Skopje is rather inconvenient involving long 7 hours overnight layover.

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