As someone who does travel internationally with their children, I understand the tolls that such travel can take on a family and also on surrounding passengers. Since I travel by myself a lot also, I have been on that side as well when someone else’s child is crying a majority of the flight. As such, we work really hard to make the trip enjoyable for both our children and nearby passengers and most of the time, it works out really well.
How Aegean Is Making Family Travel More Fun & Cheaper
I love it when airlines help to make that process easier as well. Most of the flight attendants we have had on our international trips have been very helpful and kind. They really make an effort to see if there is anything we need, and that happens when we are in coach so it is not just a business class thing. When the airlines make steps to improve that travel, it makes someone more likely to choose that airline when traveling as a family.
That is what Aegean Airlines has done (a member of the Star Alliance, based in Greece with flights all over Europe and into Africa and Asia). For a while, they have always had special little knick-knacks on board for kids (including some chocolate gifts around Christmas). But now they have set up a program to take it even further by offering child discounts, ease of travel at airports, and fun packs and meals onboard.
Aegean For Families
Here is what they are offering:
- Special baggage drop-off counter and priority
- Boarding priority
- Special children’s meals (that can be ordered at the time of booking)
- On most international flights, a nutritious baby meal may be offered in a special glass jar (must order up to 24 hours before departure and/or during the booking process)
- Meals are packaged in specially-designed Aegean Junior Pilots packs and served either in a lunchbox or on a tray mat with colourful pictures and with children’s airplane-shaped cutlery
- Children’s meals are served before the adult meals
- Aegean Junior Pilot Pack for infants
- Aegean Junior Pilot pacifier clip
- BabyCare Baby Wipes
- Baby On Board car sticker
- Aegean Junior Pilot Pack for “younger” children
- A colouring book and colouring pencils, for them to colour in the most famous monuments and our aircraft, as well as learning all about them!
- Memory Card Game, an entertaining memory game with cards showing different cities of Greece and other countries as well as our aircraft.
- Souvenir Aegean Junior Pilot badges.
- Aegean Pilot Pack for “slightly older” children
- Log Book, an exercise book in which they can note down their travel memories, answer quizzes on aviation, and learn interesting information about travelling by plane.
- Souvenir Aegean Junior Pilot badges.
Aegean Discounts For Children
In addition to those implementations, for flights running from now through June 15, 2016, there is a 33% discount on children’s fares and infants fly free (common in the US but not necessarily so outside of the US). Here are the details on this discount/sale:
- Promotion is valid for infant fares (0 to 2 years old) and children fares (2 to 11 years old) and refers to all domestic flights from Athens and all international flights from Greece and Cyprus.
- The promotion is valid for bookings until 21/02/2016 and travel from 04/02/2016 until 15/06/2016 for flights operated by Aegean & Olympic air.
- Fares refer to one way travel and include all taxes per passenger for tickets purchased through aegeanair.com.
- 100% discount applied to infant fares (0 to 2 years old) and 33% discount applied to children fares (2 to 11 years old) for the travel period 04/02/2016 until 15/06/2016.
- In case of ticket cancellation refund policy is applied depending on fare category.
Booked Ticket Elsewhere?
So this is great if you book on Aegean, but what if you are flying an award ticket with United or some other Star Alliance carrier and Aegean is just part of the itinerary. I was told that you can call in and make the meal request for your infant but everything else will be just the same as described above.
Having flown Aegean a lot, I can say their cabin crews are top notch in attention and detail. I have never been disappointed with how good they are and they even take that up a notch with children. Only on Aegean (and Turkish) have our kids received little goodies on board and they have loved it! Now, they will receive even more when flying on Aegean and that is always something to get kids excited!
In fact, it makes me think that such a trip will be the first one where I have one of my children do a trip report of the flight! 🙂
What About Everyone Else?
The good news for travelers without children, nothing will really change for you. If you have elite status, you will continue to have priority boarding as well (in fact, in Thessaloniki, you board straight from the lounge and that does not change). Also, you will still have access to the regular/elite counters for baggage drop-off, and you will also still get to eat onboard. 🙂 You will lose nothing from these changes but these changes will certainly help to occupy children a little bit more which always helps to make a flight go a bit smoother.
