Assessment: AEGEAN Airways Industry Magnificence

Celebrating a milestone 12 months – its twenty fifth in trade – AEGEAN Airways has noticed sturdy enlargement since its inception in 1999 when it had simply two airplane and flew to just two locations from Athens. Now flying to 47 international locations and priding itself in selling lesser-known Greek locations and native merchandise, this Celebrity Alliance member caters for the nonetheless undiscovered Greece in addition to the well known. These days, the airline continues to amplify its horizons, maximum just lately ordering 4 A321neo LR airplane which will duvet distances of as much as 7.5 hours, making the Persian Gulf, India and Central Africa out there from Greece.

The aircraft and direction

We flew Industry Magnificence on an Airbus A320-200 on a right away carrier from Manchester (MAN) to Athens (ATH), in addition to from Athens to Manchester.

Take a look at-in

There’s a beneficiant baggage allowance of two x 32kg instances for the grasp, and a 13kg bag plus a private merchandise on-board. For the reason that we have been staying in Athens for simply 5 nights, the latter used to be greater than plentiful for us, so we have been ready to test in on-line and head directly for the Rapid Monitor path to safety, with out the wish to test any luggage, despite the fact that we did name on the table simply to get revealed boarding passes.

Living room get right of entry to

From Manchester, AEGEAN fly out of Terminal 2, with Industry Magnificence passengers gaining access to the Get away Living room.

There’s a long bar (in addition to a smaller one that used to be closed on the time of our morning consult with), quite a lot of cooked breakfast choices, in addition to fruit, yoghurts, pastries, tea/espresso, and so forth.

Out of Athens, AEGEAN’s number one base, there’s a moderately new living room (opened in 2022) that used to be significantly extra trendy and extra spacious. Once more, we had an early flight and I feel it had no longer lengthy since opened once we arrived, so it used to be very quiet and felt very spacious.

There used to be a big island with truffles and pastries, and amenities for warm drinks.

There also are a spread of seating choices – relaxed sofas in addition to tables with extra upright seating,extra fitted to performing some paintings.

There have been additionally intensive further meals choices – sandwiches, wraps, mini burgers, mini souvlaki and extra – in addition to chilled beverages.

Recliners will also be discovered overlooking the airport apron – best for someone wanting some relaxation if dealing with a behind schedule flight or a extra long layover.

The seat

On each and every flight, there have been 4 rows of commercial elegance seats in this carrier, with 3 seats on each and every facet of the aisle. The center seat of the 3 has a cabin separator, reserved as a central desk, that means 16 Industry Magnificence seats in overall. In addition to this additional width, the extra leg room is after all a big plus. The seats additionally recline round 4-5 inches, greater than sufficient to get just a little close eye, and all you want in point of fact for brief haul flights.

In-flight leisure

The AEGEAN Portal provides get right of entry to to loose leisure content material, together with films, information, documentaries, tune, a transferring map and a number of video games, by means of WiFi. There’s loose Circulation WiFi possibility on board for Industry Magnificence passengers, offering speeds of as much as 15Mbps. Together with your instrument flight-mode enabled, you might merely attach by means of aegeanwifi.com or scan the QR code displayed at the again of the seat in entrance of you.

It’s only a brief flight (not up to 4 hours outbound), on the other hand, so if you’re taking a guide or pre-load a tool with a film or two, you’ll simply go the time. The present factor of the inflight mag, fly good blue, consisted of over 300 pages; unsurprisingly, possibly, there are many advertisements, however there are nonetheless a excellent selection of articles, and this version incorporated one detailing Athens’ new culinary initiatives, as neatly in-depth items on Chios, Marseille, Vilnius, Andalusia, Rhodes and South Chania – all simply out there by means of AEGEAN’s direction community, after all.

Food and drinks

For our outbound flight, breakfast on board consisted of a recent fruit platter with Manouri cheese, plus a collection of a morning roll or croissant, with butter and a strawberry marmalade. There used to be additionally a sizzling entrée selection through Government Chef Lefteris Lazzarou of Omelet with Smoked Hen, Leek, Mushrooms and Thyme (pictured) or Omelet ‘Stourgato’ with Smoked Salmon and Highly spiced Tomato Sauce.

For our go back, we had the number of pastries.

There’s a standard beverages carrier, too, with a number of drinks to make a choice from, together with native beverages of ouzo and tsipouro, plus 8 other Greek wines to make a choice from (had it no longer been morning, I might have perhaps been tempted through one!).

The Gastronomics crew in the back of the AEGEAN Industry Magnificence revel in comprises a few of Greece’s maximum prominent Government Cooks, together with Christafaros Peskias and Alexandros Tsiantinis, Pastry Chef Stelios Parilaros and Grasp of Wine Konstantinos Lazarakis.

The fee

Out of season, you’ll shuttle Industry Magnificence from Manchester to Athens and again for as low as €461.90 in keeping with particular person That is in accordance with a seek for subsequent January. In top season, you’ll be expecting to pay greater than €1,000 in keeping with particular person for a roundtrip Industry Magnificence fare.

Miles+Bonus – AEGEAN’s personal common flyer program – rewards unswerving shoppers with miles for flights and different actions. Individuals can redeem those miles for quite a lot of advantages, equivalent to loose flights, upgrades and different services and products. This system is split into 3 tiers: Blue, Silver and Gold.

Common flyers may additionally like to appear into the AEGEAN Go which permits passengers to create their very own flight bundle and protected costs for a complete 12 months, with limitless price ticket adjustments. You’ll customize your AEGEAN Go through settling on a direction or staff of routes that fit your wishes, the selection of flights you like, and the minimal selection of days previous to the flight’s departure. This may find the money for you further distinctive advantages equivalent to the utmost Miles+Bonus Award and Tiers Miles for Financial system Magnificence Flex fare with each and every flight booked.

The carrier and ultimate ideas

As anticipated, the cabin team have been pleasant {and professional}.

The arriving in Athens used to be very environment friendly and made an actual distinction with how briefly we have been ready to make it to the town centre. Industry Magnificence passengers have been ready to disembark very quicly after taxiing to the gate and make their approach to a bus that took simply the 16 folks to the airport development in an instant, somewhat than looking ahead to different passengers. This proved to be a big plus.

After we reached passport keep watch over, there used to be no queue in any respect, so we have been via customs and making our approach to the centre of Athens in an issue of mins.

Total, flying Industry Magnificence with AEGEAN have been a extremely stress-free revel in. The spacious seating and the superb high quality of the living room in Athens have been two key attributes that in point of fact stood out. The swift and environment friendly arrival in Athens used to be additionally a big plus, saving us treasured time and permitting us to begin our shuttle immediately.

Disclosure: Our shuttle used to be subsidized through AEGEAN Airways.

Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson is Editor of A Luxurious Go back and forth Weblog and has labored within the shuttle trade for greater than 30 years. He’s Winner of the Inventions in Go back and forth ‘Highest Go back and forth Influencer’ Award from WIRED mag. Along with different awards, the weblog has additionally been voted “probably the most global’s best possible shuttle blogs” and “best possible for luxurious” through The Telegraph.