AEGEAN AIRLINES MAKES FINAL DECISION TO GO WITH

C O N F I D E N T I A L ATHENS 002395 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/13/2015 TAGS: EAIR ECON GR SUBJECT: AEGEAN AIRLINES MAKES FINAL DECISION TO GO WITH AIRBUS FOR REFLEETING REF: A. ATHENS 1836 ¶B. ATHENS 1851 ¶C. ATHENS 1903 ¶D. ATHENS 1999 Classified By: AMB Charles Ries for reasons 1.5 (B) and (D) ¶1. (C) On Friday, September 9th, Aegean airlines informed Ambassador and Boeing representatives that its Board of Directors, despite Boeing's new offer (reftel D),had confirmed its previous decision to refleet with Airbus. According to shareholder Eftichios Laskaridis, the Board, in a meeting held September 1st, voted 14 to 1 in favor of Airbus (the sole dissenting vote coming from Laskaridis.) The only reason given for the decision was that going with Airbus provided "clearly visible novelty" to Aegean customers. ¶2. (C) COMMENT: Aegean's final announcement came, like all its other decisions during this process, as a surprise to everyone involved. No one, including Boeing, had any idea that the Aegean Board had met in full on September 1st, or that a decision had been made. In fact, Boeing and Post had spoken on the 6th about the situation, believing that Aegean was delaying its decision until after the September 14th EC ruling on the Olympic Airlines privatization deal. Although the outcome was not what we wanted, it seems likely that our intervention did succeed in getting Boeing in for one last offer, and that Boeing's offer was sufficiently attractive to stir debate among the Board. Post will continue to keep an ear to the ground for any hint of a connection between Aegean's refleeting decision and an EC decision on the Olympic Airlines privatization deal, due this week. END COMMENT. RIES