An extension to Metro Line 2 from Aghios Dimitrios to Hellenikon is expected to open by March 2010, and not the end of next year, Public Works and Environment Minister Giorgos Souflias said yesterday.

The minister was visiting the site of the Ilioupolis station, one of four (Ilioupolis, Alimos, Argyroupolis and Hellenikon) currently under construction, where the tunnel-boring machine broke through yesterday.

Souflias said that the delay in opening the 5.5-kilometer extension to the public was due to the number of antiquities that had been found along the way.

Once open, some 80,000 commuters a day will use this section of the metro. It currently takes 45 minutes to drive from Hellenikon to Syntagma Square in central Athens but this journey will only take 15 minutes by metro, the minister said.