Aegean Airlines, the Greek carrier, announced its decision on Friday to cut ticket surcharges by up to 3 euros (USD$3.84) on its domestic and international flights in response to the falling price of oil.

Greece"s largest private carrier increased the surcharges in July at a time when oil prices reached USD$146. However, this week, the oil price touched USD$43, which was the lowest for the past four years.

In a statement, the firm said, "Due to the drop in oil prices, Aegean is reducing surcharges on domestic and international routes tickets by two and three euros respectively, starting from January.�

Industry circles report that this is the second surcharge reduction seen over a two-month period.

In yet another announcement made this week, Aegean said despite the global downturn, it would significantly expand its European routes in 2009. As part of this move, the carrier said it would introduce new flights to destinations including Brussels, Berlin, Barcelona, Vienna and Venice deploying its new Airbus A320/321 aircraft on these routes.

The carrier added that by May its fleet would feature 21 Airbus jets. The carrier has also applied for permission from local authorities to commence its flight services to Istanbul and Tel Aviv.

Aegean has revealed a 21 percent drop in its nine-month profit, to EUR26.5 million (USD$33.88 million), though it witnessed an increase of 13 percent in passenger traffic, blaming strengthening of the dollar versus the euro.

In yet another move, the carrier"s main competitor, Olympic Airlines, is being privatised.