Flight compensation from Athens International Airport
- IATA ATH / ICAO LGAV, Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos at Spata, about 20 km east of the city, open since 2001.
- Base of Aegean Airlines, its regional arm Olympic Air and Sky Express, with around 30 million passengers a year.
- Metro Line 3 and suburban rail run into the city, with Syntagma about 40 minutes away.
Athens is the pivot of Greek aviation: nearly every island and mainland domestic route touches it, and it has become a substantial international hub in its own right as Aegean has added long, thin European routes. Traffic is strongly seasonal, peaking between May and October when leisure demand and charter flights stack up on top of the domestic island network. Departures and arrivals share one main terminal, with Schengen and non-Schengen satellites reached from the same concourse.
Your passenger rights
Greece is in the EU, so Regulation (EC) 261/2004 covers all departures from Athens and all arrivals operated by an EU carrier. Domestic hops to the islands are short, which puts them in the €250 band, while flights to the Gulf or North America can reach €600; the payment is per passenger, so a family of four claims four times. Greek limitation periods are comfortable by European standards — five years is the figure commonly applied to these claims — and the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority is the national enforcement body. Whatever the cause of the disruption, long waits at Athens entitle you to meals, drinks and, for an overnight, a hotel and transfers.
Tips for claiming
Greek air traffic control and ferry strikes are frequent enough to plan around, and a strike outside the airline's own organisation may be treated as an extraordinary circumstance that removes compensation while leaving your right to care and re-routing intact. Island connections bought separately are the classic Athens trap: if the flight to Athens is late and you miss a self-booked hop to Santorini, the airline owes nothing on the second ticket. Ask for written confirmation of the delay reason at the gate, because Greek carriers are more likely to settle quickly when the file already contains their own explanation.
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