Aegean Airlines

Is Aegean Airlines safe?

Yes. Aegean has flown scheduled services since 1999 without a fatal accident or a lost aircraft, it is overseen under EU rules, and it passed the IATA safety audit (IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary). The group carried 17.3 million passengers in 2025. We score it 89, level with easyJet, a point above Ryanair and a few points above ITA Airways.

What keeps it from the 90s is one approach at Geneva in 2024 and the system it flies in: Greek air traffic control had a full radio failure in January 2026, and many of Aegean's summer destinations are short island runways in strong winds.

Aegean's safety record

The record is short to tell. On 5 December 2004 an Avro RJ100 flying over Greece hit clear-air turbulence for about 14 seconds, with a peak load of 3.4 g. One passenger was seriously hurt, one passenger and three cabin crew had minor injuries. Greece's investigators found no warning the crew could have seen. Turbulence injuries count as accidents under ICAO rules, so it stays on the record, but we weigh it lightly.

Aegean has never written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary an aircraft. The crashes people sometimes link to it, such as the 1989 Shorts 330 that hit a mountain on Samos, belong to Olympic Aviation, the regional arm of the old state airline. That company has nothing to do with today's Olympic Air beyond the name.

What happened at Geneva in 2024?

On 27 November 2024 an A320neo arriving from Athens as A3854 descended well below the glide path on approach to runway 22. It got down to about 100 feet above the ground 3.3 nautical miles from the runway, where it should have been at about 1,100 feet. The crew went around and landed 18 minutes later. Switzerland's investigation board, the SUST, rated it a serious incident and is investigating; there is no final report yet.

The next day an A320 landing at Budapest skidded while turning off the runway and stopped with its nose gear on soft ground. The crew reported a brake failure. Nobody was hurt, and the runway was closed for about 45 minutes.

Those are the two cases that matter. The rest of Aegean's file is the normal stuff of a busy airline: bird strikes, cracked windshields, a cabin pressure loss near Naples in 2023. A Geneva-type approach is the kind of event we watch most closely, because it is how controlled-flight-into-terrain accidents start.

Olympic Air: does it count?

Olympic Air, bought by Aegean in 2013, flies the ATR and Dash 8 turboprops to the small Greek islands. It has its own operating certificate and its own OA flight numbers, and investigators name it as the operator. Under our rule for group airlines it is a separate airline: we describe its record here but do not count it in Aegean's score.

Its recent record is worth knowing if you are flying to the islands:

• Milos, January 2022. An ATR 42 veered left after landing and stopped on soft ground about 10 metres off the runway. No injuries.
• Naxos, June 2025. An ATR 72's right engine failed with an explosion and a fire just as it lifted off. The crew declared a mayday, flew the drills and landed back at Naxos. Greece's investigators rated it a serious incident.
• Athens, August 2023. Two Olympic ATR 42s at the same altitude got collision-avoidance alerts and both crews followed them.

Olympic Air has its own page and score: see Olympic Air. If its flights move onto Aegean's certificate, they will count here.

How old is Aegean's fleet?

Young. Aegean flies only the Airbus A320 family: about 26 A320s, 3 A321s, 21 A320neos and 19 A321neos in 2026, at an average age of about nine years, according to a fleet tracker (Aegean publishes no age we could open). Five more neos arrived in 2025, and more are due until 2028.

The neos use Pratt & Whitney's PW1100G engine, which needs early inspections for a manufacturing flaw. In November 2025 Aegean said 12 aircraft were parked for this, the peak of a cycle it expects to ease from autumn 2026. Parked aircraft mean cancellations and leased-in jets; we describe them but do not score them in the fleet factor.

Flying Aegean: what to know

• Island approaches are rough in summer. The meltemi, a strong north wind in July and August, makes landings at Mykonos, Santorini and the smaller islands bumpy, and diversions happen. Keep your seat belt fastened until the aircraft stops.
• Greek air traffic control is a weak point. On 4 January 2026 most aviation radio frequencies in the Athens flight region failed and Greek airspace closed for several hours. The head of the controllers' association blamed ageing equipment that should have been replaced years ago. This shows up as delays and cancellations, not as accidents, but leave slack in your plans.
• Check Middle East flights close to departure. Aegean suspended its Middle East routes, about 4–5% of its schedule, after the conflict that began in early 2026, and EASA bulletins for Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq were still in force in October 2026.
• On island tickets, check the operator. An OA flight number means Olympic Air and usually a turboprop, though an Aegean A320 sometimes fills in; an A3 number means an Aegean jet.

How we scored it

The accident record (94) and oversight (90) are close to the top of our scale. The fleet (86) is young and more than half new-generation. Incidents (82) lose points for the Geneva approach, and the environment (80) for Greek island airports and air traffic control. Aegean also owns more than 20% of Volotea, which flies its own aircraft under a Spanish certificate.