The decision to close its base in Athens for the winter season was taken by the Irish airline. Ryanair.

According to the company from from October 29 to the end of Marchreleases two of its aircraft from the airport “Eleftherios Venizelos“by shortening your routes to tenfrom 29 which were planned.

Ryanair will support 10 routes from Athens to Dublin, London, Brussels, Milan, Bologna, Rome, Budapest, Katowice, Vienna and Maltano longer park planes at Eleftherios Venizelos airport.

This means that the four bases he had in Athens in 2019 and became two last year will be zero this winter season.

An Irish company with a Greek market share of approx. 7% (beyond the Aegean 38% and Sky Express fifteen%), will maintain a base in Thessaloniki and will serve routes to and from Thessaloniki and from Chania, as well as to and from the capital city.

Ryanair CEO, Eddie Wilson in a statement, he stressed: “We are disappointed to announce the closure of our base in Athens at the end of October 22 for the winter season, but the Greek government has inexplicably failed to deliver on Ryanair’s ambitious growth plans as part of a much needed recovery program. tourism to reduce non-competitive airport charges, which would help restore traffic after the pandemic, as Croatia, Ireland, Portugal and other countries have already done. The Athens airport is a prime example of how the Greek government and high cost German ownership cannot benefit the people and economy of Greece.”

And he continues: “We again ask the Minister of Tourism, Vasilis Kikilia, to respond to our written development proposals in which we propose to transform the Greek tourism market over the next 5 years by doubling traffic to 10 million passengers per year, boosting off-peak tourism, creating 4,000 local jobs and supporting much needed regional development.

This failure to engage the Greek government has already led to the closure of our base in Rose Ryanair this summer and have now forced us to close our base in Athena in October of this year and reallocate this capacity to competitive cheaper destinations such as Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Portugal.

Greece’s airport tax structure is inefficient as it rewards German airport operators who control a vital part of Greek national infrastructure through economic growth in tourism and communications.

It is inexplicable that the Greek government is not using incentives at Greek airports to promote Greek businesses and jobs, instead of defending outdated, high-cost German practices. We call on Minister Kikilia to finally respond in writing to Ryanair’s development proposals that will transform Greek tourism by creating thousands of jobs in Greece during the winter season.”

RES – OIE