Aegean Airlines joins Star Alliance network

Connecting Greece to the World

Improved Access to Greek Vacation Hotspots

Jaan Albrecht, CEO, Star Alliance presents an aircraft model to Theodore Vassilakis, Chairman of Aegean Airlines.

ATHENS, Greece – June 30th, 2010 – At a ceremony held in Athens today, Aegean Airlines was accepted into the Star Alliance network as the 28th member.
 
Theodore Vassilakis, Chairman of Aegean Airlines said: “Joining Star Alliance is an honour and a great opportunity for Aegean. As of today our customers will enjoy recognition, loyalty benefits and end-on-end global service that Star Alliance is renowned for. At the same time, there will be a ‘star’ on the map, showing that services and access to Greece have been significantly upgraded.”

Aegean Airlines completed the integration and systems upgrade process in a short 12 months, following its acceptance as future member in May 2009.

Jaan Albrecht, CEO Star Alliance said: “AEGEAN brings a wealth of experience and an extensive domestic and international route network to the alliance family. For alliance members, Greece is an important travel market where Athens can be built into a major hub airport with growing connection traffic. It has already become an important player in the Southeast European area and we fully expect entry into Star Alliance will support its further development.”

Connecting Greece to the World
Greece is of strategic importance due to its geographic position in the eastern Mediterranean, acting as the main southeastern access point into the European Union. With AEGEAN, the Star Alliance network to/from/within Greece now covers more than 1,500 weekly flights to 69 destinations in 27 countries.

Moreover, the large Greek communities spread across more than 100 countries – such as the U.S, the U.K., Australia, Germany and Canada – now enjoy the advantages provided by an airline alliance when visiting friends and families.

Also, the business community in Greece will now be able to make use of Star Alliance Frequent Flyer benefits both on domestic flights, as well as on multiple carrier itineraries when travelling across Europe and overseas.

Greece is also an important meetings and conventions market. Hence, the inclusion of AEGEAN into both Star Alliance Convention Plus and Meetings Plus will provide for new business opportunities.

Improved Access to Greek Vacation Hotspots

Greece is undoubtedly one of the most sought after vacation destinations. Not only will AEGEAN provide seamless travel to over 17 domestic destinations, but through the inclusion of these in the Star Alliance Europe Airpass, as well as in the very popular Round-the-World fare, flights to these destinations are now available at very attractive prices.  By the same token, Frequent Flyers can redeem their miles to travel to this wide array of new destinations in the Star Alliance network.

Publicly listed Aegean Airlines began operations some 11 years ago and now operates a fleet of 30 aircraft covering a total of 54 domestic and international routes on more than 150 daily flights. Specifically, 26 routes in Greece are covered, as well as another 28 international routes. Since 2008, AEGEAN has become the largest Greek airline in terms of passengers.

 
About Star Alliance:
The Star Alliance network was established in 1997 as the first truly global airline alliance to offer worldwide reach, recognition and seamless service to the international traveller.  Its acceptance by the market has been recognised by numerous awards, including the Air Transport World Market Leadership Award, Best Airline Alliance by both Business Traveller Magazine and Skytrax. The member airlines are: Adria Airways, Aegean Airlines, Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian, Blue1, bmi, Brussels Airlines, Continental Airlines, Croatia Airlines, EGYPTAIR, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, Spanair, SWISS, TAM Airlines, TAP Portugal, Turkish Airlines, THAI, United and US Airways. Air India has been announced as a future member. Overall, the Star Alliance network offers over 21,200 daily flights to 1,172 airports in 181 countries.

About Aegean Airlines:
Aegean Airlines is the largest Greek carrier, carrying 6.6 million passengers in 2009, an increase of 10% over 2008.  After taking delivery of 22 new Airbus A320/321, the company operates a fleet of 30 aircraft.  Within its ten year scheduled services history AEGEAN has been awarded six times by the European Regions Airline Association (ERA) in recognition of its operating performance, commercial success and commitment to customer comfort and satisfaction. Additionally, AEGEAN has been repeatedly awarded by the Athens International Airport as the single largest contributor to the airport’s passenger growth. AEGEAN has also received the Skytrax World Airline award as the best regional airline in Europe for 2009. In February 2010 the shareholders of Aegean and recently privatized and re-fleeted Olympic Air entered into an agreement that, once approved by EC authorities, will eventually lead to the merging of the two companies.

Theodore Vassilakis, Chairman of Aegean Airlines accepts a football (soccer) jersey
from Lufthansa CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber. The number 28 signifies the 28th member of the alliance.

SPEECH BY THE VICE-CHAIRMAN OF AEGEAN AIRLINES EFTICHIOS VASSILAKIS
AEGEAN – STAR ALLIANCE JOINING EVENT
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Dear friends and colleagues,

During its 11-year presence in the Greek air carrier market, Aegean has marked numerous milestones and achievements.

The vision of our Chairman, Theodoros Vassilakis, for a high-quality  company that would make a difference in the Greek market, has been supported  by our main shareholders, as well as the Aegean executives and staff, who  turned  it into a product that has gained and is still  gaining the trust of our  passengers every day .

Developing gradually  and always taking careful  steps, we established a partnership with Lufthansa five years ago, which gave us  the opportunity to understand how such alliances between air carriers work, but also to put our competences to the test. The next important, as well as reasonable step was our acceptance by and accession to the Star Alliance.

We wish to thank this global family of large, recognized companies for their trust and support.

Clearly, we are not going to be the largest  member of this international  alliance, consisting of more than 4,000 aircraft and  providing its services to more than 600 million passengers  each year; we believe, however, that we are going to be one of the most dynamic members, with a  new, state-of-the-art fleet and with high-quality services.

We have already passed our first test in the Alliance, by integrating and upgrading our systems to fully comply with Star Alliance, a process that was completed in less than 12 months.

Therefore, as of today, our company, and Greece as a whole, has its own “star” on the map of aviation.

We wish to convey the message that despite the current adverse circumstances, not only do we refuse to be downgraded on an international level, but we even achieve significant upgrades. We upgrade our services, as well as the privileges and options we offer to our customers.

We upgrade access to Greece. We upgrade the image of Greek carriers worldwide.

The Aegean’s travel continues; and we are working towards all international and regional agreements necessary for the continuous development of our company.

We wish to thank you once again for your trust and support.

JAAN ALBRECHT, CEO OF STAR ALLIANCE SPEECH

Jaan Albrecht, CEO Star Alliance

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome

And if I have a look around the audience I must say, welcome back.

Many familiar faces from around the world, who are following the development of our alliance over the years and have come a long way to Athens today to attend this important occasion.

For me it is a privilege to take the stage on behalf of the leadership of our world-spanning team.

One more time the Star Alliance family is growing today.
One more time are we adding a high quality brand name to our impressive list of world-class airlines.
One more time are we proud to call an exciting country our home.

This exciting country Greece and its people stand for
- Rich culture
- Beautiful nature
- Enjoyable hospitality

No wonder that this country has always been a center for trade and tourism. Greek people have traveled the world long before many others. And Greek people continue to enjoy traveling and connecting to communities in every corner of the globe.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Star Alliance can simply not afford, not to have a home here.

Our new home market will be served under the leadership of a fascinating airline, Aegean.

- Fascinating, because of its young and successful history
- Fascinating as well, because of the stringent and entrepreneurial business concept of its owners and its management and
- Fascinating, because of its competitiveness in the marketplace based on its dedication to cost-efficiency, quality and service.

Gentlemen, in only a few years you have managed to make Aegean the flag carrier of this proud country. And you have set the stage for further controlled growth by combining the Greek airline industry forces in the interest of the traveling public.

You and your team deserve our congratulations and our respect.

In fact:
- Sustainable growth
- Commercial success
- Customer-centric service delivery

In so many ways, your company performance, your business attitude and the spirit of your people are perfect examples for true Greek values which sometimes have been forgotten in recent reporting about this country in other parts of the world.

I am sure that as of today your existing customers will enjoy even more to fly Aegean, as you now offer an unsurpassed network and superior frequent flyer benefits.
And as of today many more customers will make Aegean their choice when traveling in the Europe.
 
The reasons for that are easy to explain. And as much as our competitors may claim the contrary

- No other airline network offers more flights,
- No other airline network offers more destinations,
- No other airline network offers better connections and
- No other airline network has more experience in working together across cultures, borders and timezones for the benefit of the worldwide travelers.

With this announcement today we are manifesting our industry leadership in a time of harsh global competition.

Alliances around us are striving to copy our model whereby certain other airlines publicly attack the reasoning for such global cooperations with arguments which can easily be identified as selfish.

In other words: Never has the competition been more aggressive.

Being not very far away from the birthplace of the largest global sports event, Olympia, I am tempted to say in the spirit of any athlete, Star Alliance loves to compete, as long as the game remains fair and the playing field is level.

We are a global team, accepting the challenge to convince our customers with supreme value for affordable money.

Ladies and Gentleman,

Today marks the end of - what we call - the integration period for Aegean into Star Alliance. Since the day that we have announced the acceptance of Aegean`s membership application last year here in Athens, Aegean with the help of sponsor Lufthansa, all other members and my little team in Frankfurt has worked intensively,
- to align the processes,
- to connect the systems and
- to build the products required by our proven standards.

During all that time we have experienced our new Greek friends as a highly skilled, young and dynamic team, full of ideas and full of energy and enthusiasm.

What a great addition to our family.

Dear colleagues at Aegean,
As much as it may have been extra time and extra work, it was well worth it. I have been notified by our team that all the requirements for membership have been satisfactory fulfilled.

Therefore the only task remaining for me is to publicly announce to the world, that with immediate effect,
Aegean Airlines is a Member of Star Alliance

To all our new customers and friends may I extent a proud

Welcome on board.