Greece
Airport Guides

Operating Detail

Greek airport briefings

The seasonal notes behind the airport choice, written by the desk that files the slots.

Operating into Greece

What is different about flying a private jet into Greece

Greece is a parking problem with an airport attached. No separate landing permit is needed for EU and most third-country operations, but the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority lets slots and prior permission be requested only 14 days before the date of flight, at every airport in the country, and scheduled operators take priority. Athens allows about twelve hours on the ground, overnight confirmed a day before. Handling is mandatory at most fields and arranged with the slot. Athens, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini, Rhodes, Kos, Samos and Heraklion clear international arrivals; the small islands do not. The season runs May to October, July and August are when the slot, the parking and the helicopter tighten together, and the meltemi blows hard in the afternoons.

Athens International is the base behind every island trip, with two parallel runways of 13,123 and 12,467 feet, Level 3 slots and 53 stands. Mykonos has a single 6,244 foot runway, a Level 3 slot and PPR, about 40 minutes on the ground by NOTAM from May to September and no parking for visiting aircraft. Santorini carries the same regime, with PPR approved for a maximum of 40 minutes between 0500Z and 1800Z, but its 7,208 foot runway takes business aviation up to large cabin types. Paros has a 4,593 foot runway for light jets and turboprops, no 40 minute limit, and takes EU and Schengen departures only because it has no customs. Syros, at 3,542 feet, is for turboprops.

Beyond the Cyclades the fields are easier. Skiathos has a 5,341 foot runway 98 feet wide between two bays, with the low approach over the beach and Level 3 slots; light to super midsize types operate and it is the only Sporades field taking jets. Skyros has a 9,849 foot military runway with Category 5 cover. Zakynthos has a 7,310 foot runway, Level 3 slots in summer, real parking and no 40 minute rule, with night operations restricted in turtle nesting season. Kalamata is the gateway to Costa Navarino, about 45 minutes away, on an 8,868 foot operational runway shared with the Hellenic Air Force; the published 9,843 feet is the closed parallel. Handling is not mandatory and the aircraft can stay. Megara takes light aircraft and helicopters, Elefsis is closed to civil aviation, and Tatoi admits based aeroclubs only. Tanagra, north of Athens, is a fighter base with the Hellenic Aerospace Industry plant beside it, and Tripoli in Arcadia a sparsely used military field; neither takes civil traffic.

The constraint that catches crews out is the slot clock. The 14 day rule removes the usual advantage of booking early, and on Mykonos and Santorini a denied slot is reoffered and lapses if it is not accepted within thirty minutes. The aircraft that dropped its passengers waits at Athens, Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Kos, Samos or Heraklion, or at Paphos, Izmir or Bodrum. Ioannina, LGIO, is the classic parking field for a Corfu drop, with a 7,874 foot runway and Jet A-1 that the desk arranges ahead for the summer, when the field has run short in the past. The desk files the slot on the day the window opens with the handler in place, answers a reoffer inside the thirty minutes, holds the parking alternate with the trip, and quotes the helicopter with the jet: Athens to Mykonos about 50 minutes, sunrise to sunset, limited by weight rather than seats.

Send the dates, the aircraft and the island as early as you have them, with the aircraft documents, the passenger and crew list, and where the aircraft can wait. June and September give the same crossings with easier slots, parking and helicopters. The desk comes back with the slot filed on day one, the parking alternate held and handling confirmed at both ends.

Facts checked against the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority publications, the airport guides above and Icarus Jet operations data.