- Aegean holds 44.4% of all flights at Athens Airport
- Sky Express follows with 20% — more than expected, less than meaningful
- Ryanair leads foreign carriers with 4.5%
- Others appear mostly as footnotes
- Officials describe this as a “rich mosaic” of competition
Athens International Airport released its latest flight statistics, and the results are exactly what anyone who has ever tried to book a ticket already knows: Aegean runs the show, Sky Express tries to keep up, and everyone else is simply passing through.
Aegean holds an impressive 44.4% of all flights in and out of the country’s main airport — practically half the market. Sky Express comes in with 20%, which is adorable considering how recently it joined the big leagues, but still nowhere near enough to challenge the throne.
Below them? A parade of low-cost carriers that appear like pop-in guests at a Cretan wedding:
- Ryanair: 4.5%
- easyJet: 2.7%
- Lufthansa: 1.9%
- Swiss: 1.4%
- British Airways: 1.4%
Numbers so small they should be printed with an asterisk and a magnifying glass.
Yet Athens Airport proudly describes this landscape as a “multi-level market with a rich mosaic of players.” A mosaic, they say.
As if a monopoly holding the center tile while everyone else squeezes into the outer corners is suddenly a piece of Byzantine art. As if Ryanair’s 4.5% is evidence of vigorous competition rather than a reminder that Greece’s sky remains a controlled habitat with limited oxygen for outsiders.
The reality is simpler:
Aegean dominates, Sky Express hustles, and the rest are decorative stickers on the arrivals board.
But in official press language, this becomes a celebration of diversity, choice, complexity — everything except what passengers actually experience while searching for an affordable fare.
Call it a mosaic if you want. But a mosaic with one giant stone in the middle and everyone else glued to the edge is not diversity. It is design with delusion.