Air Traffic in Greece Set All-Time Record on August 10

Air traffic in Greece set a new all-time record on August 10th, as the Air Traffic Control of the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority (HCAA) managed 4,944 flights within the Athens FIR (including arrivals, departures, and overflights).

HCAA Director George Saounatsos lauded the HCCA staff calling them the “main driving force behind the rising aviation metrics” in the rise in Air traffic in Greece.

“At the same time, the ambitious modernization program of air navigation systems is underway, along with the reinforcement of human resources, particularly in the fields of Air Traffic Controllers and ATSEP (electronics), to meet the operational and technological challenges of the coming years,” he continued.

To offer some perspective on this achievement it is worth noting that in comparison, the Upper Area Control Centre of EUROCONTROL in Maastricht, which manages one of the busiest airspaces in central Europe and covers four FIRs (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and part of Germany), recorded an average daily air traffic of approximately 4,800 flights in 2024.

A 9.4% increase was recorded in passenger traffic for the first seven months of 2024 across all airports handling commercial aircraft compared to the same period last year, according to provisional statistics from the HCAA.

Total passenger numbers from January to July 2024 reached 42,538,219, compared to 38,833,074 passengers during the same period in 2023.

Regarding arrivals and departures for both domestic and international flights – January – July 2024 across all 39 airports mainly managed by the HCAA – there was a 6.9% increase compared to the corresponding period in 2023. A total of 328,272 flights were recorded, compared to 306,982 flights in the first seven months of 2023.

Remarkably, the highest increases in passenger traffic at HCAA-managed airports in July 2024 compared to last year were recorded at Kasos Airport with an 89.8% rise, followed by Milos Airport (+33%).