Air Travel Surge Across Greece Pushes Airports In Greece To The Brink, Prompting Ambitious Expansion Plans For Future Growth, Particularly With North America

Published on September 27, 2025

Air recreation crossed Greece is experiencing an unprecedented surge, pushing nan country’s airports to their operational limits. This surge successful rider traffic, driven mostly by world travelers and expanding connections, peculiarly to North America, has prompted Greece to embark connected eager description plans. With increasing request for aerial travel, Greek airports are preparing for nan early by enhancing their infrastructure and expanding capacity, ensuring they tin grip nan rising influx of passengers and meet nan needs of nan expanding North American market. These description efforts are important for sustaining Greece’s position arsenic a starring European recreation destination and supporting its increasing aviation sector.

Passenger postulation successful Athens and crossed Greece’s location airports is showing beardown maturation successful 2025, arsenic nan nation’s aviation infrastructure undergoes important description to meet rising demand. Athens International Airport, Eleftherios Venizelos, is connected way for a record-breaking year, pinch 33.8 cardinal passengers expected successful 2025, an summation from 31.9 cardinal successful 2024. The maturation trajectory was highlighted astatine nan Infrastructure and Transport Conference, underscoring nan captious domiciled of nan airdrome successful Greece’s tourism and proscription sectors.

Eleftherios Venizelos, Greece’s busiest airport, has already knowledgeable a 7% summation successful rider postulation compared to 2024 and is seeing a singular 33% emergence successful postulation levels compared to 2019. This maturation is attributed chiefly to nan description of world formation routes, arsenic good arsenic an summation successful long-haul connections to North America. In consequence to nan increasing demand, a €1.3 cardinal description scheme is underway. This task intends to heighten nan airport’s capacity, yet expanding it to 40 cardinal passengers annually. This description will see a scope of improvements, including a caller seven-story parking installation and 32 further craft stands. These upgrades are slated for completion by 2027, pinch further developments planned passim nan decade to accommodate early growth.

The important description efforts astatine Athens International Airport travel astatine a clip erstwhile nan full Greek aviation assemblage is experiencing accelerated growth. Fraport Greece, which manages nan country’s 14 location airports, is forecasting a 2.5%–3% summation successful rider postulation for 2025, which would spot location airports handling complete 36.5 cardinal passengers. From January to August, Greece’s location airports collectively welcomed 26.3 cardinal travelers, representing a 2.6% summation compared to nan aforesaid play successful 2024. International passengers proceed to thrust growth, reinforcing Greece’s position arsenic a cardinal European recreation destination.

Among Greece’s location airports, Santorini, 1 of nan country’s flagship tourism destinations, faced challenges successful 2025. Following seismic activity earlier successful nan year, rider postulation connected nan land dropped significantly. From January to August, nan land saw 1.72 cardinal arrivals, a 16% year-on-year decrease. However, nan business appears to beryllium improving, arsenic nan diminution slowed to conscionable 9.4% successful August. This motion of betterment is encouraging, and location are precocious expectations for early growth, acknowledgment successful portion to ongoing infrastructure upgrades that will alteration nan island’s airports to grip rising rider numbers. Fraport Greece has expressed optimism that Santorini, on pinch different location airports, will return to beardown maturation successful nan coming years arsenic nan assemblage recovers from nan impermanent setbacks caused by nan seismic activity.

Beyond Athens and Santorini, important investments are being made successful different location airports crossed Greece. Fraport Greece allocates astir €50 cardinal annually for smaller-scale projects aimed astatine improving accommodation and enhancing nan wide rider experience. These projects are captious to keeping gait pinch nan increasing request for aerial recreation crossed nan country’s airports. In addition, €150 cardinal from nan EU Recovery and Resilience Fund is being invested successful upgrading runways and taxiways, ensuring that Greece’s airports are safe, efficient, and tin of accommodating early growth. As portion of these upgrades, a number of location airports, including those successful Zakynthos, Kefalonia, and Chania, will person enhancements designed to boost capacity and amended operations. These improvements are expected to resoluteness aerial postulation guidance challenges and facilitate smoother and much businesslike aerial travel.

The maturation of location airports is peculiarly evident successful nan figures from August, erstwhile location postulation roseate by 4%, reaching a full of 6.78 cardinal passengers. This summation indicates a patient and continuing request for aerial recreation crossed Greece, and it aligns pinch nan broader inclination of maturation successful nan country’s aviation sector. The description of Greece’s location airports is basal not only for supporting tourism but besides for strengthening nan country’s wide proscription infrastructure. As nan summertime months bring much visitors to Greece, nan request for further capacity and improvements successful nan rider acquisition becomes progressively important.

Looking ahead, Fraport Greece and its genitor company, Fraport AG, person expressed liking successful managing 22 further location airports presently nether authorities ownership. The upcoming tender for these airports is seen arsenic a valuable opportunity for further description and finance successful Greece’s aviation infrastructure. If successful, this bid would further solidify Greece’s position arsenic 1 of Europe’s starring recreation destinations and grow nan footprint of Fraport Greece’s operations crossed nan country.

Air recreation crossed Greece has surged, pushing airports to their limits and prompting eager description plans to accommodate early growth, particularly to meet nan rising request from North America. This description is basal for maintaining Greece’s competitory separator arsenic a apical recreation destination.

This continued maturation successful Greece’s aviation assemblage is simply a promising motion for nan future, arsenic some Athens and location airports activity to support gait pinch nan rising request for aerial travel. The description projects presently underway are expected to make a important impact, helping Greece’s airports to support their precocious standards of work and efficiency. With robust finance successful infrastructure, and nan continued emergence successful world recreation to Greece, nan country’s airports are group for a agleam future.