Aegean Airlines

Beginnings

The company was founded in 1995, taking over activities from Aegean Aviation. It commenced VIP flights from Athens all over the world with wholly owned Learjet aircraft.

Commercial flights

Aegean's first commercial flights were in May 1999 from Athens to Heraklion, Crete and Thessaloniki with two new wholly owned British Aerospace Avro RJ100. In December 1999, Aegean acquired Air Greece. Since 2005, the airline has been in partnership with Lufthansa. In March 2006, Aegean Airlines also entered into a co-operation agreement with TAP Air Portugal. In December 2008, Aegean Airlines announced its co-operation with Brussels Airlines. In 2009, Aegean Airlines started codeshare agreements with BMI, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa and TAP Air Portugal. On 26 May 2009, the Aegean Airlines' membership application was approved by the Chief Executive Board of Star Alliance. Aegean joined the alliance on 30 June 2010.

Olympic Air acquisition

In February 2010, initial shareholder discussions took place to consider co-operation between Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air fueling rumours of a possible merger. On 22 February 2010, Olympic Air and Aegean Airlines announced that they agreed to a merger. The newly merged airline was to carry the Olympic brand name and logo, after a transition period in which both airline brands would be used in parallel. The Aegean brand would cease to exist after the transition period. It was expected that the merger would be finalised and the combined airline would begin operation by October 2010.

Aegean joined Star Alliance at the end of June 2010. The intent was for the merged carrier to be a Star Alliance member, despite the fact that Olympic Air was forging ties with SkyTeam pre-merger. Star Alliance welcomed the proposed merger, releasing a statement stating "The integration teams from both sides will soon meet to assess the necessary steps, in order to guarantee a smooth transition of the merged Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air operations into the Star Alliance network".

On 26 January 2011, the European Commission blocked the merger between the two airlines, citing anti-competition concerns. The commission stated that the merger would have created a "quasi-monopoly" in Greece's air transport market, with the combined airline controlling more than 90% of the Greek domestic air transport market. The EC further stated its belief that the merger would lead to higher fares for four of the six million Greek and European passengers flying to and from Athens each year, with no realistic prospects that a new airline of sufficient size would enter the market to restrain the merged airline's pricing. Additionally, commissioner Joaquin Almunia stated that the merger would have led to higher prices and lower quality of service for Greeks and tourists traveling between Athens and the islands. Both carriers offered remedies in an attempt to ease concerns, though the EU believed that they would not be enough to protect travelers adequately and ease competition concerns. One of the remedies offered by the airlines included ceding takeoff and landing slots at Greek airports, though the commission noted that Greek airports do not suffer from the congestion observed at other European airports in previous airline mergers or alliances.

On 21 October 2012, Aegean Airlines announced that it had struck a deal to acquire Olympic Air, pending approval by the European Commission. On 23 April 2013, the European Commission issued a press release announcing it was starting an in-depth investigation into the proposed acquisition of Olympic Air by Aegean Airlines and announcing that the Commission will have decided by 3 September 2013. On 13 August 2013, it was published in the Greek media that the final decision had been delayed until 16 October 2013. The merger was approved by the European Commission on 9 October 2013, stating that "due to the on-going Greek crisis and given Olympic's own very difficult financial situation, Olympic would be forced to leave the market soon in any event".

On 1 February 2014, Aegean Airlines took over every non-Public Service Obligation route that was previously operated by Olympic Air.

Fleet renewal and COVID-19 pandemic

In June 2018, Aegean made an order of 30 aircraft from the Airbus A320neo family, and more specifically, 20 A320neo and 10 A321neo. These new aircraft would renew the company's fleet and gradually replace the older A320ceo family aircraft.

The first A320neo with Aegean's new livery and cabin was delivered in December 2019 and had its first commercial flight in February 2020. The first A321neo followed in September 2020.

In 2019, Aegean firstly expressed its interest to acquire Croatia Airlines, the Croatian flag carrier which it was planned to be privatized by the Croatian government. It was one of the two airlines that first expressed interest, together with Spanish regional airline Air Nostrum.