Eleftherios Venizelos airport expansion – construction to begin in early 2025, what’s changing

The renovation and expansion projects for Greece’s largest airport, Eleftherios Venizelos, are set to begin in the first quarter of 2025, with early indications showing positive pre-bookings for the 2024/2025 winter season.

The airport’s expansion plan, which will be implemented in three phases, aims to increase capacity to 33 million passengers. Preparations with architectural firms are currently being finalized, and the upgrades are scheduled to start at the beginning of the new year.

The €650 million investment includes expanding the central terminal by approximately 81,000 square meters, with the goal of increasing the airport’s capacity to handle 33 million passengers annually. The full project is expected to be completed by 2028. In the meantime, operational measures and projects will be implemented to maximize capacity, as the airport is already experiencing high growth rates. In the first eight months of 2024, passenger traffic reached 21.26 million, a 13.9% increase compared to the same period in 2023.

For the 2024/2025 winter season, Ioanna Papadopoulou, Director of Communications and Marketing for Athens International Airport, mentioned during the ITC 2024 – 7th Infrastructure and Transport Conference that pre-bookings are trending positively. New incentives for airlines will be introduced in the coming days. Additionally, efforts will focus on expanding markets beyond traditional European destinations, with an emphasis on long-haul routes to Asia, the Far East, and increased connections to the U.S. American Airlines has already announced a new route for the 2025 summer season, connecting Athens with Charlotte, North Carolina.

2024/2025 Winter Season

For the upcoming winter season, new routes and increased frequencies have been planned, along with upgrades to seasonal routes, converting them to year-round services. Aegean Airlines, for example, will add a new destination in February 2025, with two weekly flights to Gran Canaria. Aegean, SKY Express, and easyJet will also add nine new international routes. Notably, Aegean will begin offering three weekly flights from Athens to Abu Dhabi International Airport in October, marking its second route to the UAE, following its Dubai connection launched last year.

SKY Express will add seven new destinations between November and December, including Yerevan, Istanbul (daily flights), Tbilisi, Tirana, Amsterdam, Vienna, and Prague. EasyJet will also introduce a new route to London starting in November.

Several successful summer routes will continue year-round, including six that have been upgraded to permanent services. For example, Brussels Airlines will continue its connection to Brussels with four weekly flights, Aer Lingus to Dublin with two weekly flights, easyJet to Geneva, Aegean to Krakow, and Volotea to Lyon and Marseille. Six additional summer routes will also continue through winter, including easyJet’s Bordeaux, Ryanair’s Milan, Air Arabia’s Sharjah, Juneyao’s Shanghai, easyJet’s Venice, and LOT’s Warsaw connections.

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