Symi Visitor Accommodation

It may seem strange with the Symi Visitor thermometer showing temperatures in the 40C range, but airlines are now releasing their winter flight schedules, and these come into force in less than two and a half months time.

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.

Viking Airlines and their associated company Viking Hellas seem to be planning to maintain their existing flying programme at least in the near future, despite the demise of Kiss Flights who were their biggest single customer.

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.

Today’s Flight Options/Kiss Flights/Viking news is that the morning flight due to be operated from Manchester to Rhodes by Viking did not leave, but this is due to the plane having suffered damage to the fuselage. A plane has been sub-chartered to bring back the people booked to depart Rhodes today. It appears the Gatwick flights left loaded.

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.