When you do so, remember that you will need to reclaim your baggage in Athens and check it in again in both directions as Easyjet don’t do connections, even with other Easyjet flights, and allow sufficient time for this and possible flight delays.

The winter timetable is fully available now and looks like this:

Berlin Schoenfeld to/from Athens on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays

London Gatwick to/from Athens every day, with a second flight later in the day on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays

Manchester to/from Athens on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays

Milan Malpensa to/from Athens every day

Paris Orly to/from Athens on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays

Rome Fiumicino to/from Athens every day except Wednesdays.

A few other manufacturers have planes in this general range – McDonnell Douglas, now owned by Boeing, produced the MD80 series. You can actually tell these from other planes without a pilots licence because instead of the engines being on the wings like most planes, they are close together on the tailfin.Internally they’re much the same as the Airbuses and Boeings, but you are advised to sit as close to the front as possible, they’re really quiet there, but very noisy right at the back. Some Greek-based charter airlines use them, and Alitalia and SAS still use them on scheduled flights, but they’re being phased out gradually as they are less fuel-efficient than other planes of their size.

Russian-designed planes are now unusual in Greek airspace, and I don’t know enough about them to give any meaningful details.

In a class of its own is the Boeing 757 series. These haven’t been made for ten years or so, but the design life of a plane is between 20 and 30 years, so there are still plenty around. They’re popular with charter airlines because they have exceptionally good takeoff performance on short runways, which applies to may Greek island airports, though not Rhodes. Internally they are the usual single-aisle 3 seats a side layout, but the cabin is broken up into smaller areas by toilets and galleys placed part way along, as well as at the ends. They came in 757-200 and 757-300 versions, abbreviated to B752 and B753.

Smaller sizes of plane tend to be restricted in their operating range, but you may well come across Aegean’s fleet of Avro RJ100s. These are small-to-medium jet aircraft, notable because they have two small engines on each wing instead of the more usual 1 large one on each wing  Seating is standard with a row of 3 either side of the aisle, though at the back there are two rows of only 2 seats each side, with a total of 112 seats. They are sometimes used on flights to Rhodes and to nearer European cities such as Rome.
Olympic has 9 Bombardier DH-8 Q400 propellor planes with 78 seats, they use them on domestic flights and to cities in the Balkans. They’ve operated some flights on Athens-Rhodes this year, but none are scheduled for the route this winter. They have two seats each side of a central aisle.Look for DH4 as an abbreviation.
The Brazilian company Embraer makes a range of smaller jet aircraft in various sizes from the 135 (about 37 passengers) up to the 195 (about 120 passengers). 145s (second hand from the UK) are operated by Athens Airways on domestic routes, and 190s and 195s are beginning to be operated by a number of airlines on scheduled flights to Athens of up to about 2 hours duration Royal Jordanian flying from Amman is an example, and they also have the smaller 175 model, The 190s and 195s, and their close competitor the Bombardier CRJ900, have two seats each side of a central aisle. Abbreviations are what you might expect: E45,E70, E75, E90, E95, CR9.
The CRJ900s arrive at Athens with AirOne/Alitalia from Italy and Eurowings/Lufthansa from Germany.
In addition Aegean operate a couple of ATRs, smallish propellor planes, on domestic flights, though no longer used on Rhodes-Athens they have turned up on Kos-Athens. Aegean have the ATR-72 (AT7). Olympic also have some Bombardier DHC-8 100s which are in the 30-seat category and operate into restricted and/or low traffic airports like Kastellorizo – real puddle- jumpers.You’ll ofen see one at Rhodes waiting for its next flight, and dwarfed by the jets around it. They’re abbreviated to DH8.

In a later post I’ll move on to the wide-bodied planes (two aisles).

The main effects for people travelling to Rhodes is from Gatwick, where the Wednesday service will now end in late September, and the Saturday service almost immediately (though with a couple of remaining later flights around school half-term) This is less of a problem than it might have been because of the number of other airlines operating the route.

There’s still plenty of time for a late summer break on Symi, of course, and accommodation and flights can still be found (ask Wendy or Adriana via this site’s home page) , but if you fancy something a little different the island now welcomes visitors all year round. The winter experience is very different, as you’d expect – no beach boats, no beach tavernas, but the island is green – winter is the rainy and growing season, and there are still tavernas and bars available in Yialos and Chorio. It’s a good time for socialising, and many people like walking when it is cooler.

There aren’t direct flights to Rhodes from the rest of Europe, you will need to travel via Athens, and the timetable is quite different this winter. With the dire economic situation in Greece, instead of Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air both flying at roughly the same time, some commonsense has arrived, probably because they are trying to merge.

This winter there are six flights in total each way each day between Rhodes and Athens, better spaced out than previously:

From Rhodes to Athens: 06:55 (Aegean); 10:55 (Olympic); 13:40 (Olympic); 16:25 (Aegean); 18:10 (Olympic) and 21:00 (Aegean). Journey time is 1 hour

From Athens to Rhodes: 05:20 (Aegean) 09:15 (Olympic); 12:00 (Olympic); 14:50 (Aegean); 16:30 (Olympic) ; 19:25 (Aegean). Again , it takes an hour.

They will also be using larger planes, all flights are scheduled for Airbus 319/320/321 aircraft, instead of some being on Aegean’s small Avro RJ100s or Olympic’s DH-8 Q400 propellor planes.

Now all we need is for the airlines serving Athens to release their winter timetables and you can start planning a winter break on Symi.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority is now saying that people currently abroad should simply turn up at the airport on the normal checkin time on the date they were due to return home, as the return flights will be operating normally.

This implies that Viking will be paid by the CAA for the fares of the returning passengers for the next two weeks , and so the outbound flights will operate too, carrying anyone who has booked/been rebooked directly with Viking rather than through Kiss. What happens after that, given that the school holidays will be over and the number of flights was always planned to drop anyway, remains to be seen. Viking’s business isn’t limited to UK charters, and it is in fact Swedish registered. They have said they will reduce their fleet of aircraft by 3, these being planes they have hired in from a Canadian charter airline, along with their pilots. The cabin crews come from the EU.

I mentioned the Canadian thing in the previous version of the blog. The peak demand for holiday travel from Canada is in the winter, when hordes of people go to the Caribbean to escape the rather fierce weather, while in Northern Europe it is in summer. For many years airlines have taken advantage of this by arranging mutual deals so Canadian planes and pilots operate in Europe in summer and European planes and pilots operate in Canada in the winter. This cuts down the overall number of planes required, keeps pilots in year-round employment, and saves money all round.

Viking flights to other Greek destinations left loaded from Manchester this morning. I don’t know whether the people hoping to go to Rhodes (and who’d been assured by the CAA last night that they’d be OK to fly as long as scheduled departure was before 18:00) were put on Thomas Cook/Thomson/Jet2/Monarch  or just left standing there. It is the busiest time of the year, so seats will be in short supply.

On Viking’s website the equivalent flights are bookable departing from the UK for next week. I’d advise caution in trying to book them on-line until more clarity emerges.  Viking say they will be reducing their fleet by 3 aircraft, and that means at least some services must be cancelled. This won’t be the whole of the  UK-based operation though, so there is still hope that Rhodes and Kos flights will continue.

Updated 11:50 18 August – more information available.

As they were the sales agent for many if not all of Viking’s flights from the UK to Rhodes and Kos this is a serious blow to many who have booked Viking flights to Greece for the rest of the season.

Even if you have booked through a Travel Agent, they may have processed the booking through Kiss/Flight Options.

However Viking itself says it is still flying and it is possible to book flights directly with it via its website although it is downsizing its fleet. Exactly what this means in terms of cancellations to Greece isn’t clear yet.

The Manchester-Athens route was never sold by Kiss Flights, and appears to be still bookable direct with Viking.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority says it will arrange repatriation for any passengers who are otherwise stranded abroad, but that return flights tomorrow Wednesday 18 August will operate as normal. They also state that all flights scheduled to depart the UK up to 18:00 tomorrow will do so.  People whose flights were arranged via Kiss/Flight Options and are due to depart the UK after 18:00 tomorrow should contact their travel agents.

I’ll add more information as it becomes available.

Passenger aircraft of the size any of us are likely to travel on to get to Symi all have escape slides fitted at most of the doors. They are stowed inside the door frames, and deploy and inflate automatically if the door is opened from either inside or outside while the door is “armed”. You’ll probably have heard over the aircraft p.a. something like “cabin crew, doors to manual and cross check” This is an instruction to the crew that the plane has reached its parking position and the slides can be disarmed as the stairs or the bridge to the terminal are about to be connected and the doors will be opened normally. The cross-check part is to tell a second crewmember to check that the disarming has been done correctly. It could be very dangerous to personnel on the ground if the slide deploys when they’re moving equipment up to the plane. The opposite side of this is “doors to automatic”, done when the plane is about to move off from its parking position towards the taxiway and then the runway, so the slides need to be set to deploy automatically.

Why have the slides in the first place? Well, they’re only used on the ground, when an emergency evacuation is needed, usually because there is a risk of fire and there isn’t time to wait for mobile stairs to arrive. They normally aren’t used for landings on water because the distance between the door and the water surface isn’t going to be great. Some slides can be used as rafts instead if the plane lands on water. The exits that are over the wings don’t have slides, because you can step out onto the wing instead of otherwise empty space.

When a slide is deployed, it has to be removed from the aircraft, replaced with a new/reconditioned one, and sent off to the workshops for checking over and repacking. This can cause significant delay, especially if it happens at an airport without a maintenance hangar (such as Rhodes) because an engineer has to travel to the airport with the part and fit it. Although passengers are told to remove their shoes before using slides, in the controlled panic of an evacuation not everyone doesm and high heels can tear the slide, hence the need for checking, and possible repairs.

In reality most passengers are unlikely to ever use a slide, the commonest reasons they get deployed is when they’ve been left armed by mistake and catering staff delivering trolleys, or the cleaners set them off by opening doors on the other side of the aircraft to the one the passengers use.

A slide deployed as a test - China Eastern Airlines

Travellers from Newcastle will find the flights after 14 August aren’t bookable, except for the half-term departure on 20 October, and the return a week later.

Edinburgh now has flights on 29 September and 6 October, with return flights on 6 and 13 October

Glasgow is bookable only outwards on the 29 September, returning on 13 October

As a result these flights all seem to be still operating normally today (and Wednesday is the major day for flights to Rhodes ex-UK) so nobody travelling to Symi has anything to worry about, unless they bought a flight-only deal from Goldtrail rather than Kiss. In that case they need to contact the CAA – link given in my last posting.

The Goldtrail share of the market was much greater in travel to Turkey, and they do seem to have been the actual charterer for a number of flights, which have therefore stopped operating. In the main the operating charter airlines were Turkish based, and some of them may be financially damaged by this loss of income. Indeed a Turkish based plane was prevented from taking off for some time earlier today at Leeds-Bradford airport until outstanding airport fees were paid. Most UK regional airports will have lost about 5 plane-loads of passengers a week each as a result of the collapse, and that’s landing fees. car park charges, shop and catering sales which they won’t see, and will try and make up for some other way…..