Originally Posted by Manospeed

What many people fail to understand is what Aegean is doing is utterly anti-ethical and is nothing more than a shake down to collect millions in fees from Star Alliance gold members, nothing more.

Olympic Air IS a subsidiary of Aegean Airlines. Olympic Air is not a real airline company by any stretch of the imagination. Olympic Air is a "shell" airline company (effectively exists only on paper) with a pathetic fleet of a handful of prop planes and a website. How is Aegean Airlines able to collect millions in fees from unsuspecting Star Alliance gold members?

Greece receives between 25-30 million tourists per year. The overwhelming majority arrive by plane at Athens International airport. Aegean Airlines effectively has a monopoly on all domestic routes (they know this). Aegean Airlines is also part of the Star Alliance network, which also means they are obligated under the terms of their membership to provide club lounge access and additional baggage privileges to hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of Star Alliance Gold members.

A Star Alliance gold member is not going to travel to Greece with a backpack. Being a gold member, they are going to take advantage of their additional baggage privileges and bring more and heavier luggage. The vast majority of people are not going to stay in Athens, but instead will typically require taking a connecting domestic flight to an island (Crete, Rhodes, Corfu, Santorini, Mykonos etc.).

You arrive in Athens with 2-3 x 75lbs pieces of luggage, go to the kiosk to check-in your luggage, only to be told you have to pay 40-60 euros per piece because the ghost airline you're supposedly flying with isn't a member of Star Alliance. You tell them you booked with Aegean, they reply with, "The flight is "operated" by Aegean, but the flight number is Olympic Air". The above scenario happens thousands of times allowing them to collect millions in excess baggage and club lounge fees.

While technically what they're doing is "legal" per Star Alliance rules, anyone with an IQ above room temperature can see why Aegean will fly you into Greece on an Aegean flight number, but then fly you on a ghost non-Star Alliance airline for almost all domestic routes in Greece even though Olympic Air effectively only exists on paper.

Star Alliance gold members should speak with their home base airlines to bring this scam to an end and force Aegean to comply with its obligations.