Flight routing
- 1
- 2Athens (ATH) - Paris (CDG)
- 3Paris (ORY) - Porto (OPO)
- 4Porto (OPO) - Lisbon (LIS)
- 5Lisbon (LIS) - Barcelona (BCN)
A visual of my European trip I took in January 2023. Total distance: 4,036mi/6,496km

This trip report's flight route between Athens and Paris will take 3hrs 5 mins at distance of 1,312mi/2,112km

introduction
Welcome to trip report two of five of my series around Europe! I planned this trip in January of 2023 once I graduated school to explore a little more of Europe and in the process explore one new country I haven't visited before which was Greece. In total, this trip took a little over 3 weeks visiting 4 cities across Europe (Lisbon was only a stopover and not a destination).
Athens, Greece
I got the wonderful opportunity to explore this magnificent city which is a must for everyone to visit once in their lifetime. In total I gave myself a week to explore the city which in retrospect was a little too much as I did a ton of exploring my first few days in the city and had a good 3 days left over to just wonder and explore the city aside from it's main attractions. I would recommend everyone coming to visit Athens to give yourself a good 4-5days max and probably visit other parts of Greece which is what I should have done ?. Here are some amazing pictures I captured of the Acropolis of Athens which was the last site I visited before leaving Athens.



Being able to walk through amazing historical architecture was simply an amazing experience!



Once at the top there was quite an extensive area to cover. You can easily spend 2-3 hours up here.


The views from the top of Athens were simply spectacular as you'd expect especially on a relatively clear day like today.


day of travel
The day of departure soon come up and almost felt too soon but I was ready to move on for the next destination of Paris, France. I left my place of accommodation in the neighborhood of Neos Kosmos and opted to take the public metro to the airport. The one way fare for the metro was 9€ and required a transfer in Syntagma station before arriving at the airport.


The airport is not necessarily close to the city center and total travel time to arrive at the airport was about an hour and fifteen minutes.

The airport in the distance.



arrival at airport



My flight is A3 614 with a scheduled departure time of 16:15.

I headed over to the Aegean check-in desks to print my boarding pass for my records and then then headed off to security control.


Security control was a breeze and we were airside in less then 15 minutes. Afterwards we headed through the maze of duty free shops before arriving at the gates.

Plane spotting
Since I had a bit of time to spare, I decided to do some plane spotting. Here's an Aegean Airbus A320-232 departing for Chania flight time: 31m



This A320 is scoring the old livery. I very much like the newer more modern livery Aegean went with.

Aegean Airbus A321-271NX arriving from Lisbon, Portugal flight time: 3h 35m

Swiss Airbus A320-271N arriving from Zurich, Switzerland flight time: 2h 10m

Ryan Air Boeing 737 Max 8 arriving from London (STN) flight time 2h 51m

Turkish Airlines Airbus A321-231 arriving from Istanbul, Turkey flight time 1h 02m

Etihad Airways Airbus A320-232 departing for Abu Dhabi, UAE flight time: 3h 58m



Egyptair Boeing 737-800 (Star Alliance Livery) preparing for it's flight back to Cairo flight time: 1h 29m



Lufthansa Airbus A321-271NX departing for Frankfurt, Germany flight time: 2h 39m


AIRERANCE Airbus A321-212 departing for Paris (CDG) flight time: 3h 10m

Aegean Airbus A321-271NX departing for Munich, Germany flight time: 2h 09m

Turkish Airlines Airbus A321-271NX departing for Istanbul, Turkey flight time: 1h 17m

Swiss Airbus A220-300 departing for Zurich flight time: 2h 28m


our aircraft
Here comes our aircraft arriving from Munich, Germany.

Some information about my plane:
Flight number: A3 614
Aircraft: Airbus A321-271NX
Registration: SX-NAK
Delivered: August 31, 2022
Age: 0.5 years
I was very excited for today's flight as this would be my first time flying with Aegean. I've heard very good reviews about the airline so couldn't wait to experience it for myself.


boarding
Boarding began on time and I was assigned boarding group 3.



onboard
First impression of the cabin were great. The blues and whites all around worked perfectly together to create a brighter more elegant yet modern feel to the interior of the aircraft.


Here's my seat which I selected for free during booking 23F.

My view for the next 3 hours ?.


Upon boarding the aircraft, a friendly FA handed to all passengers these disinfecting wipes.

No PTV's however they do have inflight magazines which we'll take a look at later in the flight.

Off the back I was not impressed with the tight legroom. These seats offer a knee breaking 28" of pitch. I'm 5'9" or 176cm and my knees were already touching the seatback pockets, and I'm not even that tall if you ask me ?.


These seats though have individual USB ports to power up smaller devices.



Vueling Airbus A321

Sky Express Airbus A320-251N departing for Thessaloniki flight time: 36M

Boarding is complete and today's flight loads looked at around 95% full. I was lucky and had middle seat unoccupied which made seat space a little bit more bearable.

pushback/takeoff
We pushed back right on time.



We lined up on the runway for takeoff.



Until next time Athens!

We made a 90° right hand turn in the direction towards Paris.

I made the best decision sitting on the right side of the aircraft as we would be treated to incredible views of Athens one last time!

Can you spot The Acropolis of Athens? ;)



We reached cruising altitude at 34,000ft.

tray table/seatback contents
Here's a look at the tray table which is of decent size.

Followed by the safety card.

The inflight magazine which is a rarity now in days. I wished more airlines would bring these back.


My favorite part of the inflight magazine ?.



Lastly the duty free magazine.


About 45 minutes into flight the FA's sprung into action and started the inflight service.

inflight service
It's another rarity to have a meal service on a short flight in it of itself especially on inter European flights. I'm glad Aegean hasn't gone the path that LH and LX has gone and just do a drink service on flights of similar length.

Here's the dinner which consisted of a cheddar penne pasta as the main dish followed by side salad and a choice of drink. I believe alcoholic beverages were also complimentary as I saw several people request wines and such.

Though the portion size were a little on the small side, the main dish was very delicious.

The side salad was also flavorful and contained olives, sweet peppers & tomatoes.

Overall a very delicious meal to have on a 3 hour flight. Well done Aegean ?.



Makarska, Croatia

Split, Croatia


At some point during the flight the person in front of me reclined their seat and the seatback came up close to my face (the picture does not do it justice). This is not the passengers fault as everyone has the right to recline thier seat however it's Aegean's fault for allowing such little legroom and on top of that allowing one to recline thier seat. At least LCC that offer 28" of pitch are pre-reclined and do not allow one to recline due to the already limited space one has.



The sunset from above was absolutely breathtaking.

Flying over Innsbruck, Austria

pre-arrival service
About an hour before arrival to my surprise there would be a pre-arrival service on a 3 hour flight which is almost unheard of. On other full service carriers such as AF,KL & LX you only get one drink and snack service on a similar length flight.

This service came with a choice of drink and a greek sesame candy which was very tasty. For my choice of drink I went for a coffee.


initial descent/landing
Not long after the service concluded and we began our initial descent into Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.



Last bit of sun we'd see for the day.

Paris was under a thick layer of clouds so after we did some cloud surfing we linned up to land on the runway.


Welcome to Paris!

We arrived at the gate on time.

deplanning



This concludes the trip report. Thanks for reading!
Wow that's a lot of food for an intra-EU flight!
Its a shame pitch was so tight because the seats look great otherwise.
Thanks for the very detailed FR!
Of course! thanks for reading ?
Aegean consistently receive high marks and this review is no exception. They really are a cut above the rest on intra-European flights--In either cabin, but the difference is mostly obvious in Y where they are quite generous with free food, whereas most other European carriers have gone to buy-on-board or just have a little snack.
I really like the look of the new cabins, but yes, they did squeeze a lot of seats in and pitch is tight as a result. However, this is in line with most other European carriers who have a joined the race-to-bottom to 28" pitch over the past decade. It's great that the seats have Tablet holders and USB power--it really makes a difference. I still have a neck-ache from having to look down at my iPad on the tray table on an AS 739 with older cabins on a transcon yesterday lol
Nice planespotting--looks like the lighting conditions were ideal! Thanks for sharing!