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Delays both in arrivals and departures continue for sixth consecutive day at the Athens International Airport “Eleftherios Venizelos” on Tuesday. September 30.
Air Traffic Controllers insist on imposing a “slow down” they started last week, citing operational and safety reasons, such as the airport capacity.
On September 25, they launched a 25% “slow down” of arrivals that is they set a limit on how many aircraft can arrive at a specific time. The “slow down” means that fewer flights are being served per hour than expected.
While during the summer time, 36 aircraft were served per hour, their number dropped to 25 since the slow down was imposed, with media to report that the number increased to 26 on Tuesday.
Delays in arrivals have consequently delays in departures both for domestic and international flights, delays that reached 1.5 to 2 hours.
There is a slight improvement on Tuesday, however, the chaos remains as many passengers go to the airport much earlier driven by insecurity about their flight time. At the same time, their are international passengers who miss their connection flights due to the delays.
Air Traffic Controllers have been demanding for years modernization of the monitoring system and more recruitment of personnel.
In an interview with state broadcaster ERT on Tuesday morning, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis reiterated that “80 new air traffic controllers will take up their positions in the coming days at the Athens International Airport ‘El. Venizelos’,” according to the ministry’s timetable.
He added that an effort is being made so that various requests regarding equipment are gradually satisfied. “Safety certainly comes first, we listen very carefully to their requests,” he underlined.
He pointed out that “today it seems that the situation is a little better. With the recruitment that will be completed and with the entire effort of the ministry, it seems that these delays will be reduced. The goal is to eliminate them, I mean as a total phenomenon.”
Until the issues are fixed, the delays will apparently persist.
Note that domestic and international flights will operate as normal from and to Greek airports on the general strike day, tomorrow, Wednesday, October 1, 2025, as a court deemed the declared 24-hour strike of air traffic controllers as “illegal”.
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