Rhodes International Airport

Some regional airports will shut down briefly and gradually between November 2024 and February 2025 for runway upgrades, manager Fraport Greece announced on Wednesday.

Passenger traffic at the 14 regional airports managed by Fraport Greece reached 25.64 million passengers in the eight months of this year, up 6.4% compared to the same period last year.

The Greek islands are reaping the rewards of the seven-day "visa express" granted to Turkish citizens, with arrivals in the first 10 days of April tripling compared to last year.

The data presented exclusively by Kathimerini show indicatively that arrivals on Lesvos reached 3,800 compared to 390 in the corresponding period (April 1-10) in 2023.

Passenger traffic at the 14 largest airports outside of Athens - operated by Fraport Greece - showed a slight decrease in the first quarter of this year compared to the corresponding period in 2019.

The South Aegean seems to occupy the largest share in the success story of Greece in Tourism in 2021, despite the unfavorable environment formed by the pandemic, since, before the end of August, the traffic from the direct international flights at the airports of Cyclades and Dodecanese exceeds by more than 500,000 arrivals for the entire 2020 tourist season, according to the South Aegean Touri

Fraport Greece reported a 71.4% annual decline in passenger traffic last year at the 14 regional airports it operates in Greece.

Turkey's research vessel Oruc Reis reached even up to 7 nautical miles off Greece's island of Kastellorizo late Thursday, before gradually moving outside the Greek continental shelf, Kathimerini understands.

Greek carrier Bluebird Airways has declared it is ready to resume Greece's air link with Israel from early July, if authorities allow it. It intends to link its Iraklio hub, as well as Rhodes, Kos, Mykonos and Thessaloniki, with Tel Aviv, in the context of a bilateral state agreement currently being prepared between the two countries.

Passenger traffic at Greece's airports rose 4.7 percent year-on-year in the first seven months of 2019, figures compiled by the Civil Aviation Authority show.
The total number of arrivals and departures during this period was 35.52 million, up from 33.92 million in the first seven months of 2018.

Greece is the preferred destination for Austrian tourists this year based on the number of flights to Greece, which exceed 15 weekly from the airports of Austrian cities.