A ringing endorsement (Olympic Airways)

Member Name: avacarrdo

Product:	Olympic Airways
Date:	20/10/08 (169 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Comfy seats, good service, fair prices

Disadvantages: Nothing major

I went to Athens in June of this year and one of the first things to sort out was how I was going to get there. I decided to give Olympic Airlines/Airways (OA) a try.

THE COMPANY:
OA is Greece's national airline, and was founded in 1957. The company has expanded over the years, amalgamating with other Aviation-related companies. I have found it hard to figure out whether the company is officially Olympic Airlines, or Olympic Airways. In any case, I'm just going to refer to them as OA. They fly to many destinations within Greece, as well as to many major cities in Europe, including London Heathrow and Manchester (Although flights don't go every day from Manchester). They also fly to Toronto, Montreal and New York, as well as the Middle East and South Africa. They have a modern and expanding fleet.

PRICES AND BOOKING:
Prices vary, although they do seem to be on the cheap-ish side for an international airline. My ticket each way was £44. Once you added tax on, however, it was £180 return from Heathrow to Athens. This was only 50p more expensive than Easyjet and a lot less expensive than flying BA, although I did book kind of last minute. I booked through the website, and was pleased at the rate I found on it.
The website, www.olympicairlines.com is pretty easy to navigate around. It's not as comprehensive as some, but it offered all the information I needed. You can book and pay for flights through it (Because OA is a full service airline, there are no sneaky charges for checking in bags or checking in at the airport or, you know, breathing.), check what movies will be shown, and even check-in online 24 hours before the flight, or if you've only got hand baggage.

CHECKING IN AND BOARDING:
Due to London's crappy public transport system, I arrived at Heathrow only 90 minutes before the flight was due to depart. In any other country in the world, I would be perfectly unflustered about turning up then, but you know what Heathrow is like. Bolting up to the checkout area in Terminal 2, the OA desk was very close by. Two counters were open and there were no queues. The girls weren't particularly friendly, but neither were they rude. Bags were checked in quickly. The handling agents for OA at Heathrow are Alitalia, so you can go to their desks if you have a problem that the check-in people can't deal with.

Athens airport is nice and spacious, and check in gates were clearly marked for each flight. My flight back to England was actually delayed for 6 hours due to a techincal problem with an aircraft, luckily I checked my email the night before and was duly informed, so I just turned up to the airport 2 hours before the new departure time. There was a bit of a wait to check in, courtesy of a massive school group that consisted of far too many over-hyped ten year olds. With only two counters open for the flight, I had to wait about 20 minutes to get to the front of the line. Because the flight was delayed, OA were compensating people with.....FREE FOOD VOUCHERS! How exciting is that? (Answer: Very.) So I got Euro12 worth of food vouchers without the inconvenience of having to wait at the airport for 6 hours.

Boarding the aircraft at both airports was done quickly and easily, with very polite ground staff. Although they did make announcements that they were going to board by rows, everyone started queuing up immediately anyway. Neither of the flights was very full, so the staff just kind of shrugged and let people through regardless. The interior of both aircraft were clean, with attractive looking navy blue seats. Nothing special, but not hideous either. The seats on the airbus are arranged in a 2-4-2 configuration, going down to a 2-3-2 configuration in the last 5 or so rows of the aircraft. Both times I was able to nab a row of 4 seats to myself. I have to say that the seats are some of the largest and widest economy seats I've ever sat in, you'd be very comfortable even if every seat was occupied. Even when the seat in front was fully reclined, there was still room to manoeuvre.

Because Heathrow is hell on earth, we missed our original takeoff slot by 5 minutes, and as such were pushed to the back of the queue. We were all sitting down, belted in and ready to go when the Captain announced that we would have a 90 minute wait before we could take off. To his credit, he was very apologetic and explained in detail what had happened, but there was still the fact that we had to sit on the ground for 90 minutes before we could even take off. There was nothing for it but to wait. The crew encouraged us to walk around, make phone calls if we had to, and started up the inflight entertainment. They also came around offering juice and water, so the certainly did their best. The captain gave us regular updates, and eventually we took off, after completing final safety checks.

INFLIGHT SERVICE:
Once the flight (finally) took off, I found the crew to be friendly and professional. They were all completely bilingual, and would make announcements in both Greek and English. Although, if they were saying something in Greek, and holding a pot of coffee with an enquiring look, you didn't have to really wait for them to repeat it in English. They were very good at noticing if you were and English or a Greek speaker, and remembering throughout the flight. Although both flights were quite empty, so maybe they wouldn't be so good at remembering during a packed flight. The crew seemed to be friendly, even taking to the time to chat with passengers and each other. Again, maybe if the flight had been packed they wouldn't have had the time.

As Olympic Airways is a full-service airline, you are offered drinks and a full meal onboard. Once we'd taken off, it was a drinks trolley with a small-ish but adeqeute range of juices, soft drinks and alcohol, although they were not accompanied by any nuts or pretzels. The meals on both legs were good; coleslaw and then a main dish of pasta- one way it was spaghetti bolognaise, and on the other it was a pasta bake. They didn't offer you a choice, just put the food down in front of you, but I'm assuming that if you were a vegetarian, or had special dietary needs, then you'd order a special meal ahead of time. We were also given a bread roll which was hard and crumbly and just kind of disintegrated when you tried to attack it with the flimsy plastic knife provided. Dessert was good, on one flight we got a caramel tart, on the other baklava! The crew offered tea or coffee after the meal, and made frequent passes with water. As it was such a short flight, I don't think they set up a snack bar in the galley, although maybe on longer flights they do.

PTV's (Personal TV's) are progressively being introduced to the fleet. Both times I was on an Airbus, which has been fitted out with them. There are about 5 channels showing a range of documentaries, movies and music video-type shows. All the shows were in English, with Greek subtitles. Flying out, there seemed to be something wrong with the system, as I could only get two channels, plus the airshow. It seemed to be an aircraft-wide problem, as even the safety video was jumpy in parts, and was cut off before the end. Flying back to the UK, however, all channels seemed to be working fine, even if the shows weren't particularly riveting (Watching Englebert Humperdinck in concert, anyone?) The crew hand out headphones at the beginning of the flight, and collect them before descent.

Pre-landing checks were officious and thorough. A small gripe- no announcements about giving out landing cards to non EU citizens when we came into London. And this time I noticed there were a lot of Americans on the flight, so we all got to immigration and then had to find the cards and hang around filling them in. It's a small thing, but it would have been nice to have received the cards on the plane, just before descent.

DISEMBARKATION AND LUGGAGE RETRIEVAL:
No problems here, and as both airports have aerobridges no horrible bus rides to the terminal. The baggage came out reasonably promptly, but it wasn't the fastest I've ever experienced.

CONCLUSION:
I know nothing about OA before planning this trip, and I was very pleasantly surprised by my experience with them. Considering they're a national airline, their prices are pretty reasonable, and they fly to tons of places in Greece, including many of the islands. The seats were some of the most comfortable I've sat in for a while, and the food was tolerable (Apart from the bread rolls.) Even though both flights were delayed by significant periods of time, both ground crew and onboard crew dealt with them as best they could. It was a smooth flight both ways (Only taking between 2.5 and 3.5 hours each way, depending on weather conditions) and the crew were very professional and friendly. I'd definitely use them again if I ever go back to Greece, and if you're planning a holiday to Greece, I'd give them a try!

Summary: Greece's national airline are good to fly with