Priority boarding today for the IST flight was a joke. Business class and status passengers were invited first to board the bus, and I was expecting them to take us straight to the plane....but no, they invited all the other passengers to board as well! Hence we were pinned to the wrong side of the bus and last off when we boarded the plane. I thought they only did this stupid sort of thing at LHR but now I know differently.

And 3 out of 3 flights to ATH have landed up at a remote stand to be bused to terminal. Do they ever use the jetties?!

I think it is a bit unreasonable to expect that they will use the bus for only 5 people. The key is to figure out the exit door and sit by it, since you will be first on the bus

Yes! Flying OA it's always bus, flying A3 it's about one bus for about 5 jetties. Seems like you are a γκαντέμης. (jinx) ;)


In ATH, the exit doors are always (well, in the vast majority of the cases) on the left-hand side heading to the plane and the opposite side when arriving. The door at the back of the bus is the closest to the front stairs of the plane and, usually, to the door of the terminal.

Really? I guess it depends where you fly to. In my recent experience it has been the other way around! There are what? about 14 jet bridge gates in total and at least 40 to 50 remote parking stands capable of taking A320s. On recent visits to ATH they are parking more and more aircraft in the south parking stands (behind the closed satellite terminal) whereas they used to use almost exclusively stands to the north. Right now Aegean have 46 A320 series aircraft and at my usual time of visiting (mid morning) I'd estimate only three or four parked at jet bridges and maybe 10 parked to the north and another three or four to the south, giving an approximate one in five chance of getting a jet bridge.

I realise it depends a lot where the aircraft are departing to AND arriving from. If the incoming flight is non Schengen and the next flight is intra-Schengen, for example, they are going to use remote parking even if a jet bridge is available in order not to have to move the aircraft between A and B gates. The recent addition of quite a few new non-Schengen destinations has made the situation worse on top of the fact, of course, that they're doing rather well and are expanding a lot in general.

One thing is for sure - it's about time the satellite terminal was re-opened!

I agree generally, although I've found it's nearlly always legt-hand doors arriving too. The buses almost always approach the aircraft from the nose in due to the arrangement of the parking stands and roadways.

So why do they do it once landed?

The answer is simple. At arrival, they only have the C class passengers (all of whom sit together in the front) board the bus before the remaining people. At departure that simply can't do that: C class passengers often wait till the last moment in the lounge when they're to be bussed, they'd also have to separate C passengers from *Gs. and so on. And, finally, this wouldn't speed up boarding, as the first bus would have to wait in front of the gate until it's ready to go, blocking the place for the cattle class passenger bus.

Makes sense ^

A bit irrelevant but it has to do with enforcing things

Checked in my parents today and at baggage drop the (otherwise grumpy) agent asked them to weight their cabin baggage. After asking him he said that they even weight cabin baggage for C and A3*G customers.

It makes sense if they have a rule, but 8kg is really not a lot given the fact that easyjet doesn't weight them at all (or other airlines).

Well I can guess that if you bypass the desks then it won't be a problem (never had a problem myself) but I've recently only flewn in C or been a A3*G pax...

I have seen people check in at T2 A3 desks and give their hand luggage to their relative seeing them off who waits out of sight ! :D