They have already turned their attention to 2025 airlines airports but also the tourism industry in general, excluding the Greek, that the first signs show that the next year will be a good tourist year. Subject of course to geopolitical tension.
The airlines
The trend of world travel continues to strengthen, says the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in its latest estimate of global air traffic until August 2024, which, measured by Revenue Passenger-Kilometer-RPK , increased by 7 .9% a year. base and 8.6% in August worldwide.
Among European countries, the RPK increased by 7.7% in August and 6.9% in July.
In fact, Willie Walsh, director general of IATA, warned that continued strong growth in demand could mean we are on the verge of an infrastructure capacity crisis that will limit connectivity and choice for passengers and businesses. .
Sète
In our country, the president of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises, Mr. Yiannis Paraschis, speaking at the 5th Institutional Management conference, said that “as a continuation of 2024, if we have a new record of arrivals and income, for 2025, in principle the signs we have are not bad , but it is very quick The first, strong signs come from the big tourist exhibition in London, the WTM in November and also from the planning of the airlines for the next year”.
But he explained that “it is not self-evident that we will continue with a double-digit increase in income and income in the coming years as well. Neither the European GDP nor the Greek GDP, in fact, do not justify such trend and therefore we need to slowly get used to lower growth rates.
The whole tourism in Greece seems to be functioning based on this assessment, especially the airports and airlines.
The AIA
The management of Athens International Airport has already announced that in the second half of 2024 a gradual return to a single digit growth rate is expected if in the first half the total traffic of passengers at the Airport “is flying ” of 16% compared to the level of 2023, to 14.01 million passengers.
For August it announced an increase in passenger traffic of 10.5% compared to the level of August 2023 and for September of 9.7% compared to the level of September 2023.
However, international traffic remains in double digit percentage (about 12.3%, but at the beginning of the year it “flies” with 20-22%) transatlantic connections.
The collaborations of “El. Venizelos”
As recently announced, American Airlines will add a new route to Greece in 2025, with seasonal routes between Athens (ATH) and Charlotte, North Carolina (CLT), starting June 6, 2025 .
Also from 2024 it announced new partnerships with Juneao Air, Air Arabia, Norse, Lot, Asiana, Smartwings in addition to domestic airlines AEGEAN and SKY Express which also increase their network.
According to the recent statements of the Director of Communication and Marketing of Athens International Airport for 2025, the messages are positive in the pre-bookings that are working satisfactorily, while he announced that the new incentives for the airlines will be presented in the coming days. Without giving more details, the purpose of the incentives is, he said, to upgrade their seasonal itineraries throughout the year and add new ones during periods of low demand in the direction of increasing traffic. of passengers in the winter months.
Management also focused on the development of new markets from Asia and the Far East and on further connectivity to the US market.
Η Fraport Greece
For 2025, Fraport Greece, from the first contacts with air carriers, expects another satisfactory year, however, here also the limit in terms of growth rate is not expected to be the same as in previous years , and the absolute numbers increased significantly. high.
According to the recent statements of the general manager of Fraport Greece, Giorgos Velos, “2024 will end with the company managing 36 million passengers in the 14 airports it controls, from 34 million in 2023, which set a new record. This is an increase of 5.5%-6%”, he added.
Fraport expects a new increase in passenger traffic for 2025, unless unexpected, but at a single-digit level and slightly less than in recent years. At the same time, it plans a series of investments for airports to meet the increase in demand
Η Aegean
“Aegean is one of the few airlines that recorded performance above 2019″, said the company’s deputy managing director, Mr. with new flights to new destinations but also to alleviate seasonality, by increasing the frequency of existing routes or by adding new ones”.
Aegean aims to increase capacity at the end of the season with the last quarter increasing capacity by 5%, a percentage that is expected to be “extended” in the first months of 2025 as part of the season extension plan.
The new Aegean flights
In the fourth quarter and especially from October, it started flights to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, complementing direct flights to Dubai. At the same time, the network of Thessaloniki, the second largest base in the AEGEAN, is systematically developed, because from the end of October Amsterdam will be added to the network of direct destinations. Although demand in the main European markets continues to show satisfactory trends, it is a fact that the ongoing crisis in the Middle East continues to affect the markets of Israel, Egypt and Lebanon.
The new Airbus
The Group in H1 2024 took delivery of 3 new Airbus A320 neo family aircraft, delivering a total of 31 aircraft since the end of 2019. It expects two more by the end of the year and in 2027 it will deliver five more.
The collaboration with Volotea
However, Volotea’s investment opens up new development prospects for Aegean, as together with the equity relationship, Aegean and Volotea signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to explore new opportunities for in distribution cooperation as well as other commercial sectors, with the aim of being more effective. exploiting synergies between the two companies.
In particular, the commercial cooperation will initially focus on the availability of the products of one airline from the website of the other, as well as the further exploitation of the international network from/to the regional airports of Greece, such as Heraklion, Rhodes, Chania, to/from the main European markets such as France, Italy and Spain, in order to offer more options to passengers with the most efficient use of the resources and investments of both companies.
H Sky Express
Sky Express continues to expand its network of partnerships with other airlines, with the latest partnership with ITA Airways, the Italian national carrier.
The new cooperation strengthens the prospects of connecting the country to international and intercontinental destinations.
In total, its portfolio of strategic interline partnerships includes 18 of the world’s largest air carriers, strengthening Greece’s interconnection prospects with more than 160 countries.
At the same time, it received new aircraft, strengthening its fleet. It recently took delivery of two, a new A320neo plane and a new ATR 72600. In 2025 the company is scheduled to receive another plane and it is estimated that two more following the transport of the fleet to 30 planes in total.
It also adds connections to Yerevan (3 times a week), to Istanbul from mid-November with daily trips, to Tbilisi, Tirana, Amsterdam and from December to Vienna and Prague.