AIA’s 14th Airline Marketing Workshop “Let the Sunshine in”

This year’s Airline Marketing Workshop was held on February 20th and worked on topics such as a market overview of the “stabilisation year” 2013, optimistic forecasts for traffic development in 2014, incentives policy for sustaining and enhancing of the overall Athens traffic, AIA’s actions aiming at boosting the city’s attractiveness and potential as a destination and the airport’s presence in the social media. Furthermore, guest speakers presented trends and future challenges for the global aviation industry, further development potential, extension of the tourist period for Athens, case-studies of the Turkish and Croatian destination marketing strategy and airports and airlines benefits from exploiting social media as witnessed by the international experience.

Finally, as every year, Athens International Airport awarded airlines with the fastest development and highest growth in passenger numbers in their scheduled services during 2013.

The airline awards, as per respective category, were the following:

1. Best of the TOP-10 Airlines Award was awarded to Turkish Airlines as the overall fastest growing airline operating at AIA in 2013 among the 10 airlines that recorded the highest passenger traffic volumes, with Alitalia and Aegean Airlines also highly commended.
2. Fastest Growing Airline in a Thin Route Award was awarded to Royal Jordanian for achieving the highest percentage annual passenger growth in 2013, with Pegasus Airlines also highly commended.
3. Fastest Growing Airline / Seasonal Routes Award was awarded to Norwegian for achieving the highest percentage passenger growth in the summer period of 2013, while US Airways and Air Transat were also highly commended.
4. Highest Ranking European Destination was awarded to British Airways for the highest contribution in making London the top European destination out of Athens.
5. Highest Ranking non-European Destination was awarded to Emirates for the highest contribution in making Dubai the top non-European destination out of Athens.
6. Fastest Growing Airline Awards per geographical region (highest percentage passenger growth, 2012 - 2013) were granted to Aegean Airlines in the domestic sector, Turkish Airlines for Western Europe (with SAS Scandinavian Airlines and Alitalia highly commended in the same category), Aegean Airlines for Eastern Europe (with Aeroflot and Tarom highly commended in the same category), El Al – Israel Airlines for the Middle East (with Emirates and Middle East Airlines also highly commended), Egypt Air for the Africa region and Air China for the Asia region. Aegean Airlines was awarded for presenting the highest passenger volumes increase at Athens International Airport in 2013 and Turkish Airlines and El Al - Israel Airlines were also highly commended.

Two special awards were also granted, one to Aegean Airlines as the favourite airline for 2013 among European passengers using the Athens airport and Emirates among non-European passengers using the Athens airport, according to AIA’s annual survey).

This year’s guest speakers were:

• Christopher Kaparounakis, Vice President of GNTO
• Iosif Parsalis, General Manager, Marketing Greece
• Dr Rafael Echevarne, Director Economics and Programme Development, ACI World
• Luis Fonseca de Almeida, Regional Director of the ICAO EURNAT (European & North Atlantic Office)
• Tim-Jasper Schaaf, Director Marketing and Sales, IATA
• Asli Gundogdu Aksungur, Tourism and Cultural Attaché, Turkish Tourist Board
• Igor Borojević, Market Planning, Analysis and Strategy Department Manager, Croatian National Tourist Board
• David McMullen, Vice President, SimpliFlying
• Stavros Kontaktsis, VP / Strategy Director, avakon+

Journalist Mr Haris Ntigrintakis was Panel Moderator