Andy's Symi Travel Blog

We now have Dodekanisos Seaways timings available up to the end of SeptemberOctober, along with Blue Star to the end of October, which was released earlier.

I haven’t produced my usual summary timetables yet, because ANES are only just beginning to wake from their hibernation and start revealing summer timetables. They haven’t got round to Symi yet, that’s if they intend to. It is certainly the case that they’ve applied for permission to use Sebeco in the Piraeus-Aegina area between November 2019 and October 2020. What they intend to do with her this summer remains to be seen, she’s moored up in Rhodes at the moment.

Symi II will operate as a day excursion boat for Sea Dreams again this summer, (no one-way tickets sold, no baggage carried), and Symi is expected to be in the Sporades again along with Proteus. The Proteus timetable is out, as yet Symi’s times are unknown.
Change of plan already – Symi II is back to the Sporades, and the timetable is published. Symi will return to her plodding up and down between Rhodes, Symi, and Panormitis instead, from 15 May onwards – for Sea Dreams, of course, and with no one-way or period return tickets available.

Yesterday was the last day of operation for the airline Germania, which for many years has been providing summer flights between German regional airports and holiday destinations such as Rhodes and Kos. This was foreseen and late last year I gave the uncertainty over Germania as my reason for delaying the publication of the flight tables for summer 2019 between Germany and Rhodes.

If anyone has booked despite this, I’m afraid there is no compensation, and only a place in the very long queue of creditors, unless it was as part of a package holiday, in which case the holiday company is responsible for arranging alternative flights.

Note that Germania Flug, the Swiss arm of Germania, is still flying as a separate company.

It really isn’t a good time for airlines – even Ryanair has reported a small trading loss, while Iceland’s WOW Air has made massive cutbacks to its operations, Turkmenistan Airlines has been banned from operating into the EU on safety grounds, and Norwegian is cutting back on its short-haul flights to reduce the number of planes used. The surplus planes this produces will then be sold to reduce debt.