KLM downsizes Athens
 

So KLM seems to have handed over one of its Ams-Ath frequencies to Olympic (the evening departure and morning flight back). Is this a permanent change? Did a search but didn't see any discussion...if codeshare was offered on the straight route it wouldn't be annoying, but since it isn't, this does make long weekends in Greece much less attractive if you want to stick to skyteam (and incidentally, CSA appears to have dropped Athens after April too...)

I just looked an Athens will only go to one-daily.

It is possible to book the KL-code share provided that you do not start your journey from Amsterdam (the Olympic Air operated flight coded as KL 2841/2842).

I wonder when they will offer this flight to departures ex-Amsterdam.

Yes. The change has been announced a couple months ago and is permanent (Well, for now..maybe next year things will be different). Don't expect the 20:30 flight to re-apear this summer.

Olympic has responded with extra flights. They announced the following for the summer:

AMS-ATH
OA150: 10:20AM
OA152: 20:30PM

ATH-AMS
OA149 06:30AM
OA151 16:00PM

So they introduced an extra flight, and, notice that the schedule is almost exactly the same as the 'old' KLM schedule. KLM changed their morning flight from 9:30AM to noon last year.

I have bugged KLM quite extensibly about codeshares for the new Olympic OA150/OA151 flights. These have (At least for me) excellent departure times. The answer so far has been: Most probably not, codeshares are generally published earlier. If by now they have not yet been loaded, chances of it happening are very very small. So don't count on it.

Together with the huge price hike of the KLM flights this summer I am now booked on AF and OA mostly. No status with OA but an early arrival into ATH (Before 15:45) is more important for me. Later arrival means a missed connection with hours of waiting, and since I fly up and down about twice a month that kinda kills the mood.

As for CSA: They used to have two daily flights. A redeye and a daily flight. The daily one used to be my favorite (and cost-effective) alternative to KLM. Last year CSA reduced their flights to one daily, the redeye. And now this one is/will be dropped as well.

OP: One alternative for you might be Alitalia. In the summer they have quite a few flights into Athens. You can also combine KLM and Alitalia flights, although that has to be booked through a 3rd party travel agency. I used to take the 7:20AM (KLM) out of AMS, change in Rome, with arrival around ~14:00 (On Alitalia) in Athens. And back with the direct KLM flight at ~17:00.

Always useful info on this from you Xandrios. Sadly I like taking the late evening flight to Ath and returning on the super-early morning flight.

I note that options for this schedule have decreased dramatically recently , with Malev's demise (they had 8:30pm-ish departures from Ams, 5:20 am from Ath), CSA's cancellation of service, and Olympic's now taking over KLM's route and making it a (slightly) later service. In this context, Alitalia is less than useful

Makes sense in the light of their discussion of lesser emphasis on Southern European destinations mentioned in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/klm-f...-schedule.html

Has there been any explanation about the rationale behind this strategic move?

Is Alitalia a factor here?

There are a bunch of A3 (Aegean) codeshares with LH connecting through FRA or MUC.

Just click on the link and you'll find it. :) Main reason is the poor economic situation in southern Europe that will undoubtedly have led to a decline in southern European passengers on KLM.

I'd have thought the reasons were fairly self-evident

Bloomberg: Athens 2011 passenger traffic declines 6.5%

A 6.5% reduction does not quite warrant a 50% cut though. Plus the article outlines that the reduction is mostly domestic traffic due to the economic fall of Greece. International traffic, while less than before, only went down by 3%.

KLM flights to Athens have always been packed till the rim in the summer. So I am also quite baffled by the decision to cut 50% of the capacity at the end of spring, right at the moment the demand will grow a lot for the summer.

I agree that they are v. full in summer--and often in winter too. However the biz class sections always seem particularly empty....may impact profitability of flight...

Crap.

Olympic Air has just canceled _all_ AMS-ATH flights for the summer

Crap.

All availability has been removed from the OA booking engine, although existing bookings have not yet been notified (At least not everybody). I haven't heard anything from them for my bookings this summer. Are they required to rebook on a comparable flight this far out? (2+ months)

No, only refund :(

So now that's off the chart, there is only one ATH flight? :eek:

I hope they will be lenient and also rebook...but I'm afraid youre right. On the other hand, I have not yet been contacted by them about the cancellations...which is strange if they only plan to refund.

...and the Transavia flight. Every other day in winter, daily in summer. Actually I'm gonna try Transavia to ATH this week due to the Malev fiasco. Not really looking forward to though..