Namaste !! What a great start for 2026, the Year of India for Athens Namaste Athens! Namaste Greece! Yasou Mumbai! Yasou Delhi! Yasou India!
+2 Direct routes to Asia, from 4 in 2025 to 6 in 2026, making Delhi and Mumbai Athens 5th and 6th direct routes
On the 23rd of January 2026, IndiGo inaugurated its first flight to Athens. This is the very first direct connection for Athens in India, the first Indian airline operating to Athens, the first ever scheduled passenger service with the “state of the art” A321XLR at Athens. This marked a significant milestone for Athens International Airport, the city and the country's connectivity overall. Furthermore, IndiGo selected and trusted the Athenian market for the deployment of its very first A321XLR, the only Narrow Body that has the capability to Directly connect India to Europe. In addition, Aegean airlines concluded a Code-Share agreement with IndiGo offering fascinating connections to main European cities from Athens for IndiGo and all major cities in India via Delhi and Mumbai, for Aegean.
So, the 23rd of January was a BIG DAY for Athens, inaugurating the first flight to India by IndiGo, with the airport organizing a large-scale celebration at its premisses with Ministers, Diplomats and other State Officials participating. Later the same day, Athens hosted a very successful Press event for IndiGo with the participation of over 70 media agents covering this development. The day (the night, actually 😊 ) ended with, what else??? A dinner under the Acropolis, with a … “dialogue of music” between traditional Indian and Greek musical instruments, symbolising the bond of the two great civilizations.
CERTAIN DATA : For 2025, India was Athens’ 2nd strongest country market in Asia with almost 100 thousand O&D round-trip passengers, with all this traffic travelling indirectly. Compared to 2019, O&D traffic between Athens and India grew by 12%. Delhi and Mumbai are the 2 strongest origins in traffic from India to Athens, with 65% share.
With the addition of Direct routes to Delhi and Mumbai this year, Athens will be directly connected to 6 Destinations in Asia, from just 2 back in 2019. For 2026, Athens will be Directly connected to Singapore with Scoot, Beijing with Air China, Shanghai with Juneyao, Chengdu (via IST) with Sichuan and now Delhi and Mumbai with IndiGo. Later in the year, Aegean will also operate its very first A321XLR to Delhi and Mumbai. IndiGo will offer 3/7 frequencies to Delhi and 3/7 frequencies to Mumbai, operating the XLR with 195 seats, with a plan to offer over 112 thousand round-trip seats between Athens and India for the remaining 48 weeks in 2026.
A Big Thank you to Pieter Elbers for the "vote of trust" in the Athens market!
A Big Thank you to Rashmi Soni and the Amazing Indigo Team for the wonderful cooperation!
Athens International Airport is fully committed to strengthen even more this close partnership and to substantially support the developmental plans of Indigo to / from Athens!
Warm wishes for safe and full flights and many happy landings to Athens!