GuyverII

Would anyone happen to have contact info for someone in Aegean customer service?

We are scheduled to fly from ATH-CAI on A3 and transiting through to the USA with TK. I am receiving mixed messages from A3 concerning our child's US passport, which expires in four months. TIMATIC shows it as valid routing, as long as Cairo is transit. Two Aegean CS agents have said "no problem" with transiting, while one I spoke to today said she would need "minimum six months" to enter CAI, but when I asked about transit was told "there are exceptions, you need to email Aegean customer service."

I have contacted Aegean customer service through email but the reply I received said it might take ten days to respond: our flight is in the next few days.

Any advice/experience here would be most appreciated. I am prepared to have an emergency passport issued, but would prefer to see if we could get an "exception" as the A3 agent said before going that route.

I have printed copies of our itinerary with Turkish, as well as the copies of the timatic query (done through the United Airlines link). Our child also has a EU resident permit and Global Entry, if that helps.

Thanks to all in advance.

Romanianflyer

So let me get it straight, what you have are two separate tickets?
- ATH to CAI on A3
- CAI to the US via IST on TK

technically for any agent working by the rules, this does not equal a transit (that would be eg. flying MS ATH-CAI-NYC on one ticket).

Now I don't have any first-hand experience transiting through CAI (although given the $ of flight tickets originating there, it is tempting and a good excuse to stick around a few days to see the country!), but I'd say it's the Egyptian entry rules which you should prepare yourself to.

For sure, the only definite answer would be the Egyptian embassy here - any written OK by them (or found on their website) would be helpful and can easily overrule a hesitant check-in agent.

As a second tip, you might want to ask the question on a different board (even though I know mods hate cross-posting) given that especially TK and the ME3 have great fares out of CAI and a huge number of Flyertalk members have made a transit through the airport and might have more details how CAI staff deals with it.

That said - even if CAI would be a bliss to transit on separate tickets (I've heard differently though!) there is still the odd chance an A3 agent can deny boarding as you don't match entry requirements into Egypt if they don't recognise it as a transit!

Knobbgb

The Aegean customer service email facility is useless. You just have to call them. The agents are usually excellent. Having said that, I suspect they won't be able to help much.

Have you considered your baggage? A3 may well not through-check your bags, although the probably could. If not, you will not be able to simply transit at CAI anyway and you would have to enter the country to re-check them. I believe the tourist via would cost you $25 each too, don't forget that.

GuyverII

No we are a carry-on only family



The CS agents were great--again two said it was ok to transit, while the last one said no.

I am in contact with the Egyptian embassy here, waiting for an "official" response.

Will let everyone know how it turns out.

GuyverII

Thanks so much for this tip--I contacted the Egyptian embassy in Madrid by email and they responded in eight minutes, stating we do NOT need six months validity if we are transiting CAI.

Contacted the stellar A3 CS agents and they noted this in our file, and said "that'll work".

So I'll print off the email along with proof of our continuing flight. Sounds like it will probably be ok.

Thanks again!

GuyverII

Follow up:

Made it back with relatively few problems. Smooth sailing from MAD-ATH, with our six hour layover went to see the Acropolis and Mars Hill. Made it back to the Swissport lounge, only interesting item was seeing three men stealing six bottles of wine from the lounge.

Passport control in ATH no problem at all, arriving at the gate we were questioned about daughter's passport dates, produced letter from Egyptian consulate so gate agent took us to boarding area and walked us to scan in our boarding passes.

Thanks to all of you for your help. First time flying Aegean, and we were impressed! Puts United and American to shame with their on board economy product.

Romanianflyer

Thanks for taking the effort to report back about your trip GuyverII!

Glad all went smooth and the letter from the Egyptian consulate was sufficient to please the A3 staff.

Perhaps slightly off-topic, but how did the transit in CAI go? Might be useful information for others considering A3 to position into CAI to take advantage of those flight deals out of Egypt!

GuyverII

Transit CAI T3-T3: Well, it was interesting. I had prepared by reading the CAI transit threads here. I must say some people posting there are overly optimistic/positive with the experience at CAI.

We arrived from ATH around 1:30 am. Upon exiting the aircraft, we followed the signs to the "Egyptair Transfer Desk", they handled our TK flight. The first one we passed was not manned so we walked down to the next, larger station.

CS Agents were a bit confused, didn't understand why we wanted to transit. I explained we were scheduled to fly out on TK at 8:30 so it wasn't worth it to exit and get a hotel. So they asked for our passports and said they would talk to TK. I asked them to request from if we could pay and switch to the 2:45 am flight. They called and, according to them, the flight was completely full. Ok, fine. I did follow up with TK later and found out they had most J seats empty and the econ seats only half filled

Then they asked for a boarding pass, which we weren't given in Athens by TK, saying we had to "physically check in upon arrival @ CAI". CS agent took our passports, asked us to have a seat and he would try and get our BPs.

So, after an hour of waiting, CS agent comes up and says "sorry, you will have to wait here until two hours before the flight in order for us to go up and get your BPs." Ah, rats.

We found three clean seats, hunkered down for a few hours of half shut-eye, I actually walked over to the airport hotel just for a peek if it was clean, but mercy, I think I would rather sleep on a concrete floor that subject myself to those rooms. Fortunately, the agent ran up after 30 minutes and said he had a "friend" in TK and he was going to try and get our BPs, which he did after another half hour. We were escorted to the terminal and spent the rest of the evening 3:30-7:30 in the Egyptair Lounge. FYI, I tried to tip him but he refused, saying it was his job.

Takeaways:

*2 hours in transit area of CAI: It's not pretty. Your wife or significant other won't like it. Neither will your daughter. Prepare to be the subject of ridicule from them.

*Lounges are poor, at best. We had it to ourselves until around 6:45, then it was a madhouse.

*Don't think I feel comfortable giving my passport away for that length of time again.

*Could you book the earlier TK flight? Yes, but personally I wouldn't chance it. Just too many variables here in CAI.

*I have to do this run by myself two more times with the exact same flights (A3 MAD-ATH-CAI, then TK CAI-IST-ORD). I've booked a room at Le Meridien for both flights, so I'll get a visa, head across the bridge to the hotel, and get 5 hours of sleep before coming back over to check in). We would have done this but the transfer desk said we would probably have to pay "special fine" since daughter's passport had less than six months validity. Maybe it would work smoother if you could get your BPs issued before arrival in CAI, but I'm not going to take any chances.

Again, a fun little adventure that was a touch bit stressful.

Knobbgb

Thanks. It's always interesting to hear these stories - especially for someone who likes to subject himself to this kind of "adventure". I would say though - your significant-others will probably not be impressed to hear you get to stay in the hotel next time!

AS for TK - do they not allow online check-in at CAI then?

GuyverII

Ha! Thanks! They have gotten over it, more or less. Did have to bribe them with a nice dinner though, and had to promise we wouldn't do that again!

Could not OLCI for the CAI-IST leg (tried both on the TK app and my laptop), TK only allowed the IST-ORD leg to check in, though, so I'm assuming one can't online check from CAI. I'm going to push the issue in ATH with TK customer service next time, and will report back if I am able to procure a boarding pass from CAI-IST.

djjaguar64

Wow, thanks for sharing this. We are doing BCN_ATH_CAI arriving in CAi at 5pmi to connect to TK's 9pm. SO A3 was not able to issue you BP's for TK but were able to tag your luggage all the way to your final destination?