Airplane Heavy Maintenance, Old Athens Airport and Flight to Samos

After some exciting Island Hopping flights in Greece, I visited Aegean Airlines hangar to see a A320 undergoing heavy maintenance D check (12 years check). I saw the “naked” airplane with all seats and panel removed. The engineer explained me about their maintenance process and showed me the rudder, the horizontal stabilizer, tail, thrust reverser and engine of A320.

Then I visited a brand new Aegean Airlines A321neo. I was able to power up the airplane and be the first to tour the brand new airplane. Next, I went back at Athens Int’l Airport in the Aegean Airlines Business Lounge. I flew on Olympic Air Dash8-Q400 to Samos. I had a tour at Samos and saw lot of immigrants and refugees on the island before fly back to Athens during the sunset.

The next day I visited old Athens Ellinikon Airport. There was Olympic B727, B737 and B747 there. I was there at the same site in 2001 just before the old airport closed down. I met Nickolas, who shared me a story of Olympic OA411 came close to crashing in downtown Athens following an engine explosion while taking off.