Which is the biggest airline @ RHO?

Well, after long and tiring efforts we 've managed to short of answer the question which is the biggest airline at Rhodes in terms of seats offered and flights planned.
To achieve this, we had to go through each airline schedule for May and June and although the accumulated stats may not be 101% accurate, as some flights were or will be cancelled, they surely provide a glimpse on the subject.

And the winner is...
...Aegean Airlines which offers by far the most seats to RHO including their charter operations. Some other interesting conclusions are:
- Ryanair's 5th place while Rhodes is in its 3rd year of service
- Olympic Air's low average seats per fly explained by the many flights performed with small planes
- The presence of 4 airlines on the TOP-20 that specialize in the Scandinavian market
- The limited presence of Easyjet compared to their schedule for Heraklion i.e., a finding probably worth of further analysis.

So, here is the TOP-20 list for May and June months:

Rank	Airline	Seats	Flights	Rank/flights	Avg seats/flight
1	Aegean Airlines	88.200	568	1	155
2	Thomson	42.526	188	5	226
3	Olympic Air	40.069	453	2	88
4	TUIfly	37.989	201	3	189
5	Ryanair	35.910	190	4	189
6	Thomas Cook Scandinavia	32.454	142	6	228
7	Transaero	31.643	84	13	376
8	Smartwings/Travel Service	20.524	113	7	181
9	Thomas Cook	19.865	92	10	215
10	Condor	19.782	113	8	175
11	Hello	17.400	100	9	174
12	TUI Nordic	17.166	82	14	209
13	Transavia	16.272	88	12	184
14	Norwegian	13.950	75	16	186
15	Jetairfly	13.576	79	15	171
16	Holidays CSA	12.446	72	17	172
17	Airberlin	11.226	61	18	184
18	Novair	10.339	49	20	211
19	Arkia	10.289	48	22	214
20	Easyjet	10.140	57	19	177

It would be further interesting to compare our results to the actual ones based on flights performed and airline load factors but such data are hard to find and may also be confidential.

Anyway, we hope you find our little analysis useful and for sure we will do our best to repeat it during the high season months as well as at the season's end for final results.

Winter flights 2012/13 - Part I

Rhodes local officials are trying for a while now to secure winter international flights and their efforts seem to be paying out since Transavia expressed their interest to include Rhodes on their winter schedule.

Transavia is a low-cost airline, daughter company of Air France/KLM and flies out of Netherlands to many destinations. Their main base is Amsterdam which is one of Europe's biggest and busiest hubs meaning that if no other airlines will fly to Rhodes during the winter there will be at least the option for connecting via AMS.

In time and after the deal is official, we will examine Amsterdam airport and the connections it offers based on airline winter schedules and Transavia's Rhodes service. In case there will be no other airline flying to Rhodes during the winter, local officials should seek along with Transavia the best possible schedule that will allow connections from other European countries and probably fill in the plane easier. Maybe an evening flight from AMS and an early morning flight from RHO would work that way, so locals could offer Transavia a good deal on overnight stay of aircraft and crew.

Besides Transavia deal, we think that it's really important to secure winter flights to/from the UK too. Options here vary as Easyjet, Monarch and Thomson could include Rhodes on their winter schedules and/or even Aegean could be talked in to open the winter market. One or two weekly flights to London and a weekly flight to Manchester would be ideal for the beginning.

Anyway, we keep a close eye on the matter and will further update whenever news are available.

Ryanair drops Rhodes from Oct 2

Negotiations between the airline and local officials didn't result the way the Irish wished so they officially announced the termination of Rhodes (and Kos) planned schedule effective from 2 October 2012 - almost a month earlier than originally scheduled.
Here is part of the announcement:

Ryanair Cuts All Rhodes & Kos Flights From October 2012 As Ministry Of Tourism Reneges On Promotion Agreement

Ryanair, the world’s favourite airline, today (17 May) confirmed the early cancelation of 82 weekly flights to Rhodes and Kos, after DETAP and the Mayor of Kos failed to honour an agreed joint marketing campaign with Ryanair to promote Ryanair’s Rhodes and Kos routes this summer.

Ryanair will now close 11 routes to Kos and 13 routes to Rhodes, one month before the end of the summer season, resulting in the loss of over 23,000 high spending tourists and over €18m in tourism revenues to the local economy, after DETAP and the Mayor of Kos reneged on an agreement with Ryanair to promote these flights internationally. This promotion together with Ryanair’s low fares, would have guaranteed passenger growth and high spending tourists.

Ryanair shuts down website for maintenance

Ryanair announced the closure of their website during the next weekend (18-20/5):

The www.ryanair.com website will be closed for upgrade maintenance at the below times between  Fri. 18 May and Sun. 20 May. Passengers must ensure that they have booked tickets, checked in online and printed their boarding passes etc. prior to the below times.

1. Online Check-in - Not available from 16:00 hrs on Fri. 18 May until 12:00 hrs. Sun. 20 May

2. Bookings cannot be made on Ryanair.com from 22:00 hrs on Fri. 18 May until 22:00hrs Sat. 19 May

3. Flight Changes cannot be made from 22:00 hrs on Fri. 18 May until 22:00hrs Sat. 19 May

Ryanair wishes to apologise to all passengers who may be affected by our website closure which is unavoidable in order to upgrade the www.ryanair.com website.

Berlin new airport opening postponed

Today it was announced that Berlin new airport opening planned for 3 June 2012 will be postponed due to technical reasons. Airport officials stated that the opening will take place after the summer holiday period.

Airberlin, Condor, Easyjet and TUIfly are flying this summer from Berlin to Rhodes; Airberlin, Condor and TUI were supposed to move all operations to the new airport on June 3rd but most probably will remain on their current facilities in Schönefeld (Condor) and Tegel (airberlin, Tuifly). Easyjet's route on the other hand is a new service and was planned to commence on June 23rd from the new airport meaning that it will certainly move on Easyjet's current Berlin base at Schönefeld.

Update 9/5/2012

* Airberlin announced that they will continue flying from Tegel airport (link)
* Easyjet announced that they will continue flying from Schönefeld airport (link) 

Berlin Brandenburg official announcement
Picture retrieved from airport's official website.

Minoan Air: new greek regional startup airline

Crete's tradition on estbablishing airlines continues as Minoan Air are almost ready to commence operations.
Based at Heraklion, Minoan will connect the cretan capital with various destinations in the region both domestic and international. Moreover, their leaked initial routes schedule showed flights from Rhodes to Heraklion and Santorini. The airline will fly with Fokker-50s and have already received the first of a total of four. Early June have been set as a deadline for commencing flights so we expect during the next days the launch of their website. 
We would like to wish them all the best and see them landing here asap. 
Website 
Facebook page

Picture retrieved from Minoan Air facebook page.

April 2012 Traffic

Here are the updated stats of "Diagoras" for April 2012 traffic as released from airport authorities. The almost 50% loss of arrivals from Germany and Israel is impressive and couldn't be surpassed by a modest increase of arrivals from Sweden, Russia and England.

Arrivals Summary

	2012	2011	+/- %
Domestic Arrivals	27.108	29.475	-8.03
International Arrivals	63.124	67.692	-6.75
Total	90.232	97.167	- 7.14

International Arrivals by Country

Country	2012	2011	+/-%
England	11.930	9.963	+19.74
France	7.064	8.885	-20.5
Finland	5.931	6.513	-8.93
Sweden	5.565	3.994	+39.33
Israel	5.357	10.226	-47.61
Germany	4.612	8.206	-43.8
Italy	4.550	5.415	-15.97
Russia	3.325	1.943	+71.13
Belgium	2.970	2.505	+18.56
Denmark	2.481	1.703	+45.68
Netherlands	2.468	2.471	-0.12
Norway	1.409	605	+132.89
Lithuania	1.326	1.009	+31.42
Poland	1.272	925	+37.51
Cyprus	1.248	1.605	-22.24
Ukraine	488	297	+64.31
Luxemburg	356	484	-26.45
Albania	308	269	+14.5
Austria	307	248	+23.79
Romania	157	353	-55.52

Rossiya Routes - Summer 2012

Rossiya Airlines will fly thrice weekly from St Petersburg to Rhodes. Below is their schedule.

SAINT PETERSBURG (LED) - RHODES (valid 20/5 - 14/10)*

Outward Flight: LED-RHO

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

FV957     19:55-22:40     B763                 Th                  24/5-4/10

FV957     14:40-17:30     B763                 Su                  

FV967     23:55-03:05     A320                 Su                  27/5-7/10

Return Flight: RHO-LED

Fl. Nr.       Dep.-Arr.       A/C                  Frequency     Remarks

FV958     23:55-04:40     B763                 Th                  24/5-4/10

FV958     18:20-23:15     B763                 Su                 

FV968     04:05-09:15     A320                 Mo                27/5-7/10

For more information and/or reservations, please visit Rossiya website.

 

* Based on Rossiya official website on 28-29 April 2012.