This Is How Competition Looks: What Does the Increase in Companies Do to Flight Prices to Athens?

All the Aviation News on PassportNews WhatsApp Channel

Athens has never been closer. The route to the Greek capital is one with greater competition, despite the ongoing conflict, competition that with the new year is set to grow even more.

As of today, after the return of Aegean Airlines to flights to Israel after three months of absence, no less than five companies are competing on the route and for your money: EL-AL, Israir, Arkia Airlines, Blue Bird, Aegean.

The flight schedule on the Ben Gurion-Athens route will become even more crowded in the coming month starting tomorrow. At the beginning of the month, the Romanian Fly Lili is expected to join the flights on the route, though it's for a negligible number of flights.

Photo: shutterstock

The significant addition will be with the entry of Air Haifa and Wizz Air into the game. On January 2, Air Haifa is expected to start operating the route between Haifa and Athens with a frequency of five weekly flights. On January 15, Wizz Air is expected to return to operate the flights on the Tel Aviv-Athens route with a frequency of three weekly flights and later also four weekly flights.

Overall, in the first full week after the expected return of Wizz Air to the route (January 19-25), more than 80 weekly flights will operate between Ben Gurion and Athens. With the addition of flights from Haifa, we'll already be at about 85 weekly flights.

What Does This Do to Prices? 

Strangely, the market penetration prices of Air Haifa are not great news unless you are indeed a resident of Haifa. The price stands at $348 for a round trip, not including luggage. It should be noted that the flight on Air Haifa's planes (ATR72) is longer and takes about three hours.

Photo: Passport News

On the other hand, an amazing thing is happening to the flight prices from Ben Gurion. With the entry of Wizz Air, the other companies operating on the route will no longer charge you the amounts we have known so far, sometimes even half of that.

And so we found, for example, during January a flight by Arkia Airlines to Athens for $144 (round trip); Israir will charge you $188; an Aegean flight we found for $172; a Blue Bird flight we managed to find for $198; a Wizz Air flight for $177 and only EL-AL stubbornly at $277, as we couldn't find cheaper flights than these.