Our Review of Athens Airport (ATH)

Our Review of Athens Airport (ATH)

At Plan Your Trips, we have analyzed hundreds of airports around the world, gaining a clear understanding of what users expect when visiting an airport. With this know-how, we have created this guide, placing passengers at the forefront of everything, aiming to simplify and enhance the airport experience.

In this guide, our goal is to present information in a manner that is both quick and reliable. Recognizing that passengers often have limited time and may be in a hurry, we strive to ensure that they do not waste time unnecessarily.

Another key focus of our guide is to highlight the strengths of the airport and also the weaknesses, and in some cases, offer recommendations to travelers. In alignment with this approach, we provide users with aggregated information on delays and on-time performance, analyzing both airlines and individual flights.

Pros and Cons of Athens Airport (ATH)

PROS 

Location: Athens Airport is located 30 km (19 miles) in the eastern outskirts of the Athens, between the towns of Koropi, Markopoulo, Spata and Loutsa.

Hub: ATH Airport is a hub for Aegean Airlines, Olympic Air, Ryanair, Volotea and Sky Express.

Modern and Clean Facilities: The airport has excellent amenities in terms of shopping, dining, and relaxation for passengers who are on business trips or just relaxing while on vacation. Facilities available for use include VIP lounge and conference facilities.

Efficiency: They take a few hours at the terminal in relation to baggage handling and the relatively short waiting times at the security checks when traveling during off seasons.

Accessibility:  Athens airport is well located from the city centre making it easy for passengers to access the airport through the use of metro, buses and shuttles as well as taking a taxi.

 

Cons:

Capacity Constraints:  Athens airport can get very crowded, especially during peak times. Despite efficient processes, the volume of passengers can lead to long waiting times at security and immigration.

Seasonal Overcrowding: Flights during peak tourist seasons can also create significant traffic, subsequently increased queues, and a much more rush environment at the airport.

Dining Options: There are a very limited dining options in the airport, particularly in certain areas. Most of them are criticized for being overpriced.

Immigration Queues: Longer than usual waiting periods and interactions at the immigration could be problematic, with some of the worst incidents sometimes taking up to several hours.

Mini-Guide of the Airport (2' Guide)

There are two Terminals: Athens airport is actually made of two terminals, main terminal and satellite terminal. Main terminal is in charge of non-Schengen and intra-Schengen flights. Satellite terminal is located south of the Main terminal. It is used only during peak seasons, when the traffic increases.

Transportation Options: Access to and from Athens airport is easy due to both private and public transportation including metro, buses, taxis, and shuttles. Public transport is available to get to the metro station and the buses to city centre run about every half an hour.

Check-in Areas: Main terminal is equipped with 144 check-in desks, it has three separate levels, one for arrivals, one for departures and one food court level.

Facilities: For rest and relaxation, find the Sky Center on T1 which is a shopping mall with a variety of food and beverage outlets both landside and airside. This area is comfortable area for waiting.

Family-Friendly Amenities: Here again it is remarkable that Athens airport offers families with children play zones, child safety seats, milk feeding corners, as well as check-in desks for families in both terminals.

Airport Lounges: There are different lounges throughout the airport to provide travellers with facilities to dine and to relax while they wait for their flight, with comfortable seating, good food and refreshments.

How we calculate On Time Performance

On various pages of our website, you will encounter a metric widely utilized in aviation and other forms of transportation known as OTP (On Time Performance). We believe that providing this metric assists passengers in planning their trips and exploring alternatives before purchasing their flight tickets.

We calculate the On Time Performance for all flights and airlines, when we have enough data to do so. In certain instances, it may not be feasible to accurately compute the On-Time Performance for a specific flight or airline due to inadequate or non-representative data, which could result in misleading conclusions.

Our calculation of On Time Performance and delay information solely relies on arrival times. This approach is chosen over calculating departure delays, as we consider arrival punctuality to be of primary concern to passengers.

The On Time Performance displayed on our website is calculated as follows:

• On Time: Flights that arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time, or earlier. In the absence of data for a specific flight, we assume the flight arrives on time, to avoid penalizing airlines for data unavailability.
• Moderate Delay: Flights that arrive with a delay of 15 to 30 minutes.
• Significant Delay: Flights that arrive with a delay of 30 to 60 minutes.
• Major Delay: Flights that arrive with a delay exceeding 60 minutes.
• Average Delay: The average delay is calculated by considering flights that arrive early as having a delay of 0 minutes. Early arrivals do not contribute to reducing the average delay calculation

Some Stats

Annual Passengers Evolution

Airlines with more flight operations (last 3 months)

Airlines with best on-time performance at Athens Airport (last 3 months)

Routes with more flights from Athens Airport (last month)