The 35 million tourist arrivals expected this year are reflected in the performance of leading companies linked to tourism. The strengthening of the first-half figures of Aegean Airlines, Athens International Airport and Autohellas are consistent with the tourism explosion, but also highlight the need for infrastructure improvement. At the recent analysts’ conference call, the deputy CEO of Aegean, Michalis Kouveliotis, noted that the 24% increase in air traffic in Greece, compared to 2019, is putting pressure on infrastructure. For this reason, he said that the expansion of Athens Airport would be important.
Passenger traffic at the 24 airports managed by Greece’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) increased 5.4% according to provisional figures for January-August 2024 released on Monday.
In total, there were 8,184,830 passenger arrivals and departures on both foreign and domestic flights, up from 7,762,918 during the same period in 2023. The largest increases in traffic in August 2024 relative to the previous year were at the airports of Kasos (60.4%), Milos (36.3%) and Sitia (29.8%).