ketelone

Hi,
So am in a dilemma to book a single ticket with Aegean or buy two separate PNRs .
MAD - ATH - JTR
MAD-ATH: Aegean, ATH - JTR: Olympic airways

The flight that I am looking at, is 220 Euro/per person on 1 ticket, but if i split the ticket, buy MAD - ATH separately wtih ATH - JTR both from aegean website, they together come out to (99Euro + 59 Euro = 158 Euro). So savings of almost 62 Euro/ 69 USD per person. We are 2 travelers.

• Connection time between flights in Athens is 2 hours 40 minutes.
• Since MAD - ATH - JTR all in schengen zone, no customs/immigration right?
• If we miss the connection due to delay in MAD - ATH flights, there are 2 later flights on Olympic Air from ATH - JTR same day but we would risk buying walk up fares.

Is it worth risking to buy 2 separate tickets to save 69$/person given the information? would you guys do it?

Mwenenzi

Will you have checked luggage? If you do, will Aegean interline on separate tickets?
With separate tickets, you have 2:40 less the time that check-in and bag drop closes: say 45minutes?
For 2:40 between flights I would spend the €62
Presumably you have looked at other airlines

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=MAD-ATH-JTR+&MS=wls&DU=mi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santor...tional_Airport

ketelone

No checked luggage. We travel light so only 1 carry on. Not sure about interline but Olympic Air is a subsidiary of Aegean so hopefully yes. But since we don't plan on checked luggage, likely wont matter.

Other airlines are not feasible because of timing issues.

East_and_West

Have you checked if you can find it as one ticket for €158 or less through a TA/OTA?

That should be more than enough for a relaxed transfer. Almost all Schengen flights in Athens arrive at/depart from Terminal B, so basically you will just have to walk 5-10 mins max. I think that in peak times/seasons they may also use the Satellite terminal, but even that shouldn't be concern if your MAD-ATH flight is not severely delayed .

Right.

Normally that should be fine. What time of the year/day will you be travelling? Air traffic peaks in Europe during the summer months, and severe delays are not unusual due to longer boarding times, busy runways, airspace congestion etc. Morning flights are in general less likely to experience such delays, but as the day passes the likelihood of a snowball effect grows. A 2:40 window should be safe enough, even accounting for delays, but this cannot be of course guaranteed. By the same token your JTR flight could be equally or even more delayed, who knows? Another issue with separate tickets may arise if there is a change in time of one of your flights, but given that your connection time is generous enough that shouldn't be a problem either.

These are my 2 cents, but this is your call. I suppose it all comes down to your risk tolerance, and how much you value that €158. If this wasn't sold as a single ticket, and you were offered instead the option to purchase misconnection insurance for $69 per person, would you do it?

Yes, normally they should interline. Although they do not HAVE to do it, there is no reason why they wouldn't. In my experience I've never had any problems interlining baggage within the same airline, in fact not even between different *A carriers. If OP needs to reclaim his bags, check them again, and go through security then this could be very time consuming. Especially so during the summer months, where most European airports turn into madhouses... Unless of course OP has status with *A.

Xandrios

The satellite terminal is used year round now; I've departed from there last week. However it is used by LLC's only. You wont have to go there when connecting between two *A flights.

East_and_West

OA is not *A, there have been endless discussions in this forum about that

I remember arriving there in summertime a couple of times, but it was quite sometime ago, so it could have well been when I was still flying DY occasionally...

KLouis

OA is not *A, but all OA flights are code-shares with A3 and most are flown with A3 planes. I can't see a plane from FRA docking at the B gates and being pushed to satellite to depart to, say, CFU!

LondonElite

Your question about risk is probably one only you can answer. I see that you understand that you are not connecting and know that, if you miss the second flight that whole ticket will be cancelled and you'll have to buy a return ticket at walk-up prices. There is no what to build a risk model, because you can't meaningfully attribute a likelihood of cancellation or significant delay of the incoming flight. Nor can you predict weather.

So what you have to do is accept that there will either be outcome A (one ticket) which has a fixed cost of EUR 220 per person, or outcome B (separate tickets) which has a cost of either EUR 158 or EUR 158 + EUR 150 (? I'm guessing at a possible walk-up fare ATH-JTR). Personally, for the sake of less stress, I would book this as a single ticket.

Chr04

I've done the same with Mad - Ath and Ath - Skg with 2 hours between the flighrs and checked luggage.
eveything went smoothly.

DELLAS

I would book as a through ticket for the peace of mind over the saving. Summer storms , strikes etc.. at least it gives you some insurance.

747jetter

I would book it separately. Connection time is long and you travel HBO. Plus you are two so savings is even bigger.

headingwest

I would also book the tickets separately, but I'm a tight git!

I do wonder whether in such a case Gold cardholders would be treated any differently if the connection was missed. I ask that because the situation did arise when flying BA, and they rebooked me onto a later flight free of charge - even though it was weather related. Of course all airlines are different, but it would be interesting to know.

It would also be interesting to know what time of year this booking is planned for?

Cookoovaya

Don't book it separately. It doesn't worth it.

Apart from all the usual delays, air traffic delays are very common during the summer season in Greece.

Did it last year with the same connection time, managed to reach the gate midway through boarding.

Dover2Golf

Why not also buy refundable tickets on the later ATH-JTR flights? If you do need them so be it, if you don't cancel them for a refund.

Knobbgb

I do this often and I almost always book two separate tickets (for the same reason). Obviously there COULD be a 2+hr delay on your inbound flight but that's extremely unlikely. Transferring intra-Schengen at Athens is a non-issue. It's very quick and seamless even though many/most flights involve a bus transfer to the terminal. NONE of the gates used by A3 or OA are more than a five minute walk from where the bus drops off (unless you have some disability of course).

Incidentally, the reason the through flights being more expenses is how the fare buckets work. Probably you'll find the ATH-JTR flight is in a higher fare bucket which forces the whole trip into that bucket, thus making the first flight a lot more expensive. I've found I can sometimes get around that by booking with an OTA, as others have mentioned. Other times it seems to be done deliberately. For example, I often fly PAS-ATH-CHQ and each flight is available in P class yet the combined trip prices as K class so 29 + 54 Euro quickly becomes 210 Euro! I just buy the two tickets and even on a 50 or 60 minute connection I have always found time to visit the lounge even.

As somebody else said - if you DO book ATH-JTR on a different ticket, don't book a return, book two singles - that way you won't also lose the JTR-ATH if things go wrong. Dover2Golf's advice above is an good idea too.