OLYMPIC AIR review - Athens to Zagreb

Hello, welcome, good morning and thanks for tuning in to another video. I'm Paul Lucas and today I'm at Athens Airport

where it's really warm and I'm ready to take my flight with Olympic down to Zagreb in Croatia

I'm in a bit of a rush because the metro here from the city only runs once every half an hour

which strikes me as not particularly good for a major European city. But anyway, I'm here now

I've got about an hour and a half left until we board and yeah I'm gonna enjoy the flight let's go

Athens Airport opened in 2001 and is the busiest in Greece today's flight from the airport is with

Olympic Air which is a subsidiary of Aegean Airlines if like me you're a Star Alliance

Gold member and care about getting the benefits that come with that status you can actually book

your Olympic Air flight through the Aegean Airlines website meaning that your flight will

have an Aegean Airlines flight number. For me, this brings benefits like business class check-in

priority boarding, free seat selection and lounge access on my flight. The check-in area here at

Athens Airport is right inside the front door. All of the Star Alliance carriers are grouped

together here and there's no queue at all at the business class check-in desks. Today's departure

to Zagreb leaves from a gate at the A end of the terminal. The low ceilings here and the general

gloom and lack of natural light belie the fact that this airport was constructed in the last 20 years

I'm not old enough to remember the ins and outs of the construction project, but it does feel like this airport was built on the cheap

Even though I'm flying in economy class, because my flight is with a Star Alliance partner

I can access the Aegean Business Lounge. This is the smaller of the lounges here at Athens Airport

and is located towards the end of a corridor. It isn't the most glamorous way to enter a lounge

but once you're inside, it's actually quite a pleasant, if small, space

The small size doesn't really bother me, because I'm only here for about 20 minutes before it's time for me to head to the gate

Aegean Airlines has a somewhat unexpected but deservedly high reputation for service standards

and the quality of the food in this lounge was pretty good. There's quite a good selection of cold food here, as well as the soup

There's also some vegan and vegetarian options, and whatever your taste I'm sure you won't go hungry at this lounge. There's

also a small dining area towards the end of the lounge here. The ability to get a

free lunch in an airport lounge regardless of the class of my ticket I traveling on cheap economy today is one of the reasons I really love being a Star Alliance Gold member After a short stay it time to head downstairs to the gate

In random other news, something that happens to me from time to time when I travel, I've got a nosebleed. Probably something to do with the heat here in Athens

It's a really hot day and yeah, hopefully this nosebleed goes away before I'm due to board the plane

These gates are downstairs at tarmac level, and if you follow me, you know that only means one thing

We'll be boarding by bus. Olympic operate a fleet of exclusively turboprop aircraft

so they don't use any of the jet bridges here at Athens, or anywhere else for that matter

Our aircraft today is parked at a remote stand on the other side of the airfield

and there's quite a lengthy bus journey for us to reach it. I have an irrational dislike for these Dash 8 Q400 aircraft. Whilst respecting their low

operating costs and the fact that you can operate routes with these aircraft that you

couldn't with any other, I still find them really irritating and annoying to travel in

for reasons I can't really put into words. If you have a least favourite aircraft type

let me know in the comments below. My first job upon boarding the aircraft is to evict another traveller who's decided to sit

in my assigned seat. I like sitting near the back of these aircraft because you don't get

get your view obstructed by the engine on the bottom of the wing. The legroom on all of these Dash 8 aircraft is actually pretty good

considering it's a regional turboprop. However, I wasn't able to stow my backpack in the overhead lockers

because they were full, and it's quite uncomfortable having it at your feet for the duration of the flight

Olympic, like their parent company, Aegean, hand out small suites before take-off, which is a nice touch

It's a fantastic spring afternoon to be flying out of Athens Airport with great visibility

and there are some fantastic views as we turn northwest and head for Croatia

Athens is a huge city and a cradle of civilization and it still confuses me

that the metro frequency to the airport for such a large place is every 30 minutes, but never mind

Let's take a quick look at the route for today's flight. Athens and Zagreb are 673 miles apart

It'll take us 1 hour and 50 minutes to travel that distance at 20,000 feet today

Olympic Air, like their parent company Aegean, are quite unusual in that even on short flights

within Europe, they'll give you some catering, even in economy class. However, I have to say this particular sandwich they gave me on this flight was not all that appetising

Given that the airline is already providing something for free that most airlines don't

it does seem a little bit unfair to criticise them. But given the fact that I've had some very positive experiences on Aegean Airlines in business and economy class

I have to say I was really disappointed with Olympic Air's offering here. The Olympic Air corporate history is actually very interesting

The more eagle-eyed among you will spot their logo actually has six rings

The current Olympic Air is actually a sort of resurrection of the original Olympic Airlines

slash Olympic Airways, which originally began life in 1957 as Greece's state-owned air carrier

The Olympic Games actually objected to their original proposition to use five rings

so Olympic uses six, with the six apparently representing Greece. The historic fleet of the original Olympic is actually very interesting

Here's the unmistakable short sky van, which was built in Belfast, and an Ilyushin 62, a very rare aircraft to see outside the Soviet zone. It's hard not to feel that

the current 2009 incarnation of Olympic is simply playing on an older heritage that perhaps it

doesn have the right to assume To their credit despite the short flight time the Olympic crew passed and made a second service this time of halva which is a kind of Middle Eastern or Caucasian sweet and a very weak cup of tea which

was pretty disgusting. Now I'd actually never tried halva before. Apparently it's very popular

all the way from Greece and Turkey down to the Indian subcontinent but I can't say I liked it

too much. I felt pretty glad to have pilfered this can of Sprite from the lounge to take away the

nasty taste. Greece is a country with a lot of islands and has an extensive domestic network

served by both Aegean and Olympic Airways, whose routes you can see in this route map

Aegean also serve many routes in Europe further afield than Olympic do using their A320 family

aircraft. The onboard route map is Aegean's and is pretty good. All of the articles are translated

into English. As we approach Zagreb, the weather deteriorates rapidly and it's soon time for us to

pull our seatbelts on and fold our tray tables up. There's quite a lot of turbulence as we

descend towards the Croatian capital

The Dash 8 never feels reassuring in turbulence, but we get through it absolutely fine and we're

soon making our final approach to Zagreb without any further incident. This flight cost me £52 one way, that's around 60 euros, and that was all in, including my

checked bag thanks to my Star Alliance Gold status. I think that for a flight of this length that's

very very good value and despite my disappointment with their catering to be fair my expectations

were very high and I still think Olympic is outperforming most regional carriers within

Europe. I'd definitely fly them again and think they're a pretty solid option on short flights

As for me I'm going to wrap up this trip report here. Thank you so much for watching

make sure you subscribe and I'll see you in a few days with another video