The first solid data on airline scheduling and flight reservations for this year’s summer season are pointing to another great year for Greek tourism.
The converging estimates of experts point to an increase in international air arrivals of around 5%, along with a smaller increase in travel receipts.
Based on current data for the April-October period, airlines have planned a 5.2% increase in seats available for travel to and from Greece. Most of this additional capacity concerns the months before and mainly after the peak of the tourism season in July and August. This confirms the trend of demand in recent years for travel to Greece throughout the year.
The largest increases in available air seats are recorded on flights to Athens and Thessaloniki, ranging from 9% to 10%.
These figures are derived from the air data tracker platform of the Institute of the Greek Tourism Confederation (INSETE) and illustrate the current planning compared to the corresponding time last year. Encouraging data also include the small recovery of flights to Mykonos, as well as the limitation of the decline that Santorini recorded earlier this year due to the earthquakes.
Geographically, the largest increases, of the order of 18.4%, are recorded on flights from the United States. Germany and Italy are showing increases of 4.4% and 4.2% respectively, while the planning for seats from the United Kingdom is marginally strengthened by 1.8%. A 3.2% decline is recorded in flights from France.
The estimate for an increase in international air arrivals of around 5% this year was also mentioned by Aegean Airlines Chairman Eftichios Vassilakis during a conference call with analysts held earlier this week. Specifically, he noted that he expects slightly better performance than 5% for Aegean, especially at the airports of Athens and Thessaloniki, and for this reason the airline has proceeded with a corresponding increase in seats offered, to approximately 21.5 million seats – i.e. 1.8 million more compared to 2024.
