IATA takes Greek “Astra Airlines” out of the market

Greek regional airline Astra Airlines has suffered a blow by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Late last Friday, the Association warned Greek travel agents to stop selling tickets on the airline with immediate effect. This comes after a recent spate of flight cancellations and signs of financial distress at the airline.

According to simpleflying.com, earlier last week the Civil Aviation Authority of Greece was investigating Astra Airlines after multiple reports of canceled flights and signs of financial problems came to a head. Now, it seems that things have taken a turn for the worst, as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has effectively taken the airline off the market.

According to Greek news agency Voria, IATA contacted travel agencies who belonged to their Greece BSP office. Greek travel agencies were informed last week to terminate all activity with Astra Airlines with immediate effect. This included not accepting bookings, no longer issuing tickets and removing the codes used by the airline from their systems.

The president of the Association of Tourist Agencies in Macedonia-Thrace, Viron Theologi, told Voria:

“This morning at 10.10 we received a letter requesting us to stop booking and issuing tickets for Astra Airlines. This development is sad. I hope the gap created is somehow filled. The problem is particularly acute for the islands that connect to Athens and Thessaloniki via Astra. In fact, there is no ferry connection to these destinations from Thessaloniki, which makes the situation worse.”

For Astra Airlines, this is a major blow as the majority of its tickets are sold through Greek travel agencies. Even if the airline is able to keep itself afloat in terms of fuel, salaries and other financial commitments, it would now need to reconnect with IATA from the start in order to get bookings on its services.

This news comes after a difficult couple of weeks for the airline, as it reportedly canceled a number of government-subsidized flights to the Greek islands in the past week. It had previously said that an explanation about this, as well as a decision on compensation due to booked passengers, would be issued today (15^th November). The statement read:

The company would like to inform the public that with regards to the recently canceled flights, requests for compensation for passengers will be examined and answered by November 15, 2019. We apologize for the inconvenience caused and are working for the smooth and orderly continuation of our flights.

A member of ASTRA’s management and ownership said in a statement to Greek daily naftemporiki on Sunday, that “potential investors are coming from abroad and the company is trying to close a deal without being able to say with certainty that an agreement will be reached.”

“We can still say nothing, neither good nor bad. We are trying to avoid a bad solution,” the Astra management member said hoping to be able for a final announcement at the end of this week along with an announcement to passengers of flights canceled the previous days.

Meanwhile, Aegean Airlines is stepping in to fill the gap. The company announced it will be stepping up its fights from the 17^th November onwards, politischios reported.