| Airline: | Cretan Airlines |
| Fleet Size: | 3 |
| Iata: | C5 |
| Icao: | KRT[1] |
| Callsign: | Cretan |
| Founded: | 1993 |
| Ceased: | 1995 |
| Headquarters: | Heraklion, Greece |
| Hubs: | Heraklion International Airport, "Nikos Kazantzakis" |
Cretan Airlines was a short-lived airline based in Heraklion, Greece that operated from 1993to 1995. It is not to be confused with Cretan Airways, an airline also based in Heraklion, that never started revenue flights.
Cretan
Cretan Airlines was established in 1993 by Cretan businessmen active in the tourist sector. Their aim was to run an airline for flying tourists to airportsnearby their hotels. Cretan was the first Greek airline to operate AirbusA320 aircraft that were leased from Adria Airways. Although the main business was charter flights, a route from Thessaloniki to Athensand Crete was opened. Cretan also planned opening other domestic routes and a decision toorder the Dornier Do-328 was made. Unfortunately, loadfactors during the winter months proved to be too low, thus incurring greateconomic losses for the company. Therefore, its owners were forced to ceaseoperations in early 1995. At that time, the company had transported morethan 100.000 passengers and had a staff of approximately 250 people.
Cretan Airlines operated scheduled services between Crete and cities in Germany, Italy and France.
The fleet of Cretan Airlines consisted of five Airbus A320 aircraft: