Athens-Eleftherios Venizelos Airport

This article covers Athens Airport, which opened in 2001. For the previous airport closed in 2001, see Athens-Ellinikon Airport .

Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos Διεθνής Αερολιμένας Αθηνών Ελευθέριος Βενιζέλος
Characteristics
ICAO code	LGAV
IATA code	ATH
Coordinates	37 ° 56 '11 "  N , 23 ° 56' 40"  E Coordinates: 37 ° 56 '11 "  N , 23 ° 56' 40"  E
Height above MSL	94 m (308  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center	approx. 25 km east of Athens
Street
Local transport	Proastiakos , metro , express bus , regional bus
Basic data
opening	March 2001
operator	Athens International Airport SA
surface	1244 ha
Passengers	25,573,993 (2019)
Air freight	93,998 t (2019)
Flight movements	225,628 (2019)
Capacity ( PAX per year)	16 million
Employees	684 (2016) (operator)
Runways
03R / 21L	4000 m × 45 m asphalt
03L / 21R	3800 m × 45 m asphalt

The Athens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport ( IATA : ATH , ICAO : LGAV ; Greek Διεθνής Αερολιμένας Αθηνών Ελευθέριος Βενιζέλος Diethnis Aerolimenas Athinon Eleftherios Venizelos ) is the international passenger airport of the Greek capital Athens . It is the largest and most important airport in the country and was named after the former Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos (1864–1936), who campaigned for aviation in Greece. It also serves as a hub for Aegean Airlines .

Location and transport links

Eleftherios Venizelos Airport Athens (2019)

The airport is located in the area of ​​the municipality of Spata, approximately 25 kilometers east of downtown Athens.

The connection to the train takes place on the one hand with the Athens Metro , whose line 3 has the final stop Airport in the east and serves the train stations Syntagma and Monastiraki in downtown Athens; on the other hand the suburban railway Proastiakos of the Greek national railway company OSE , which also leads into the urban area of ​​Athens.

There are also the four express bus routes X93, X95, X96, X97 and five regional bus routes operated by KTEL .

The Attiki Odos (A6) toll road starts near the airport and can be reached via a feeder road. There is also a street that can be used free of charge.

history

Check-in counter in the terminal

Although the second terminal at the old Athens-Ellinikon airport was completed in 1971 , it was already foreseeable that the existing site would not be sufficient. There was a choice of either reclaiming new land on the sea or a new site to be developed. In this context, the municipality of Spata was proposed for the first time . Following a call for tenders on July 31, 1995, the building was awarded to a consortium led by the German Hochtief AG in a project based on a public-private partnership . Accordingly, Hochtief has a 39.97% stake.

This construction project was the largest infrastructure project in the modern history of Greece and the largest ever international airport project on the basis of private financing; the new building cost just over 2 billion euros . A German consortium led by the Hochtief construction company and with the participation of ABB , Krantz-TKT, J&P and Frankfurt Flughafen AG (today Fraport ) planned, financed and built the airport. The tower and the air traffic control building were planned and executed by J&P.

The Byzantine chapel of St. Peter and Paul was moved 350 m to make space for the western runway, at the same time an archaeological excavation field could be opened up under the church; archaeological finds from the large construction site are exhibited in a small museum . In addition, around 4 million cubic meters of rock were removed from the Zagani Hill for flight safety reasons. Outside there is a sculpture, one of the last works by George Zongolopoulos , as well as a few casts of ancient sculptures.

The financing is designed as a project financing , i. This means that the collateral for the loans is not based on the creditworthiness of the owners, but on the future cash flow of the project. As part of a public-private partnership ( PPP , also known as PPP for Public Private Partnership ), it will legally become a private company with the Greek state (45% private / 55% state shareholders) for a period of 30 years (including the construction period) operated.

In 2001 the complex was opened to traffic and the old airport closed. In 2009 the airport handled around 16.2 million passengers.

In September 2011, the Greek Environment Minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou opened a photovoltaic system belonging to the airport with an output of 8.05 MW , which is supposed to cover a third of the airport's electricity consumption .

In 2019, the airport broke the 25 million passenger barrier for the first time.

Terminal building

Airport building (2019)

Tower (2019)

The airport has a total area of ​​approximately 1,244 hectares and comprises a main terminal and a satellite terminal between the two runways with a capacity of 16 million passengers per year. 25 shops such as boutiques, book and newspaper stores, restaurants of all categories and five duty-free shops are housed in the 7,500 square meter terminal area. On the upper floor there is a chapel of the Greek Orthodox Church and a non-denominational prayer room . For tour operators and their tour groups, the airport offers special check-in counters as well as a separate parking area at the main terminal for tourist buses. A Sofitel hotel from the French Accor group is located directly at the airport, an IKEA furniture store and a Kotsovolos electronics store, as well as a gas station, are located opposite the freight terminal .

Airlines and Destinations

Athens is the home base of the two largest Greek airlines, Olympic Air and Aegean Airlines .

There are numerous connections within Greece, which are mainly served by Olympic Air ; the most important is Thessaloniki. There are also (in alphabetical order) Alexandroupolis, Chania, Chios, Ikaria, Ioannina, Kalymnos, Karpathos, Kavala, Kefalonia, Corfu, Kos, Kythira, Limnos, Leros, Milos, Mykonos, Naxos, Paros, Rhodes, Samos, Santorin and Zakynthos served daily (as of November 2010).

From German-speaking countries, Athens is served directly by Austrian Airlines , Lufthansa , Swiss , Aegean Airlines , Ryanair , easyJet and Air China .

Long and medium- haul flights are to Philadelphia with American Airlines , to New York ( JFK ) with Delta Airlines , to Toronto with Air Canada and Air Transat , to Montreal also with Air Transat, to Singapore with Scoot , to Beijing with Air China , to Dubai with Emirates and Qatar Airways to Doha . There are also numerous flights to other major European cities, such as London with British Airways or Amsterdam with KLM .

Web links

Commons : Eleftherios Venizelos Airport Athens  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website of Athens-Eleftherios Venizelos Airport (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ PASSENGER TRAFFIC DEVELOPMENT 2019. aia.gr, accessed on June 8, 2020 (English). 
2. ↑ CARGO UPLIFT DEVELOPMENT 2019. aia.gr, accessed on June 8, 2020 (English). 
3. ↑ AIRCRAFT MOVEMENTS DEVELOPMENT 2019. aia.gr, accessed on June 8, 2020 (English). 
4. ↑ Annual Report. AIA.gr, accessed on May 19, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Airport EXPRESS Bus Connections (English, Greek), accessed on November 7, 2016
6. ↑ Suntech - largest airport solar project worldwide ( memento of the original from November 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Press release , accessed November 7, 2016