Flights to Greece from the UK

Most of the cheaper flights from Britain to Greece are chartered, which are sold either with a package holiday, or through consolidators as a flight only option. These flights have fixed and changeable outward and return dates, a maximum stay of one month and must meet the somewhat peculiar conditions of Greek law - more on which in the following section.

For longer stays, or more flexibility, or if you are traveling out of season when few charters are available, you will need a scheduled flight. These too are offered under a wide variety of fares, although much more expensive than chartered, and are again often sold off at a discount by consolidators.

Although Athens remains the prime destination for cheap fares, there are also direct flights from Britain to Thessaloniki, Prkveza and Kavila on the Greek mainland, Kalamita on the Peloponnese and to the islands of Crete, Corfu, Hios, Kfh-pathos, Kefalonia, Kos, Lksvos, Limnos, Mikonos, Phros, Rhodes, Simos, Santorini, Skiathos and Zakinthos. Note that some of these airports will be seasonal as many only handle charter flights. With any flight to Athens, you can buy a domestic connecting flight via the national carrier, Olympic, to one of a dozen or so additional Greek mainland and island airports.

A new Athens airport designed to consolidate the previous three central terminals opened in March 2001. The total project, funded by EU grant aid, was built by a consortium of German and Greek companies led by Hochtief. Situated some 30 km north-east of Athens, at Spata, the new facility is currently handling 16 million passengers (both from internal and internal flights) per annum. In the future the airport may get a third runway and additional infrastructure which will bring its annual capacity to 22 million passengers.