History
Aegean Airlines was founded as Aegean Aviation in 1987. It was originally a VIP/business air operation specialising in executive and air ambulance services. On 17 February 1992, it became the first airline to be issued with a Greek independent air operator's licence. After it was bought by Vasilakis Group in 1994, Aegean Aviation commenced VIP flights from Athens all over the world with wholly owned Learjet aircraft. The Aegean Airlines name was adopted with the start of scheduled passenger services at the end of May 1999.
Aegean's first commercial flights were from Athens to Heraklion, Crete and Thessaloniki with 2 brand-new wholly owned BAe 146/RJ100. In 1999 Aegean also bought Air Greece. After an agreement in March 2001 to merge Aegean and Cronus Airlines, the company operated for a while as Aegean Cronus Airlines until full integration. Since 2005, the airline has been in partnership with Lufthansa, offering participation in the Miles & More programme, and its flights, in addition to its A3 code also have the Lufthansa LH code. In March 2006, Aegean Airlines also entered into a co-operation agreement with TAP 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 Portugal.
The airline is owned by Laskaridis Group (25.3%), Vassilakis Group (45.2%), B Konstantakopoulos (8.3%), D Ioannou (8.1%), G David (6.3%) and Piraeus Bank (5.9%) and has 2,300 employees (2009).
On 26 May 2009, Aegean Airlines' membership application was approved by the Chief Executive Board of Star Alliance. Aegean officially joined the alliance on 30 June 2010.
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