2022
Falling from the clouds – life inside Aegean Airlines, Greece’s “top employer”
Country/area: Greece
Organisation: Reporters United
Organisation size: Small
Publication date: 11/08/2021
Credit: Eleni Stamatoukou, Stavros Malichoudis, Nikolas Leontopoulos, Georgia Nakou
Biography:
Eleni Stamatoukou is a data journalist. She has covered a big range of issues: migration, refugee crisis, corruption, LGBTI, human rights, politics, business and culture.
Stavros Malichudis is a reporter. He covers refugees and migration for Solomon and international media. He was shortlisted for the 2021 European Press Prize in the Distinguished Reporting category.
Nikolas Leontopoulos is a journalist and the co-founder of Reporters United. He collaborated in investigations with Reuters on banks, shipping and the media in Greece, and reported for the “Outlaw Ocean” NYT’s series.
Georgia Nakou, is a writer and commentator on culture and current affairs.
Project description:
Aegean Airlines, Greece’s largest airline a leading carrier in Southeast Europe, has spent years building a reputation as a top employer and industry leader. But an investigation by Reporters United has found issues with how the company treats its staff as well as employment policies resembling those of low-cost airlines: Rolling fixed-term contracts instead of permanent jobs, institutionalised body shaming and union busting. Reporters United examined data from the airlines’ annual report to show that in 2020 the carrier cut hundreds of jobs, primarily among its young, female workforce.
Impact reached:
Techniques/technologies used:
We used excel to analyze the data and flourish to visualize them.
What was the hardest part of this project?
What can others learn from this project?
Other journalists can learn that by digging deeper into data they can find interesting stories to tell. Sometimes, the data are open and are out there, in our case were on the company’ website. Numbers never tell a lie, but they must be combined by human stories. Besides, the skills you need to have a good team to work with.
Project links:
