Athens Airport’s Top Markets – UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The Greek Travel Pages GTP.gr is bringing the Athens market in the spotlight with the publication of a series of articles  providing an insight to Athens TOP and most interesting markets.

The published article is available at this link.

A sneak peek at the article below: 

Our next stop takes us to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – or “The Thousand and One” connections – highlighting the impressive route developments and increased traffic that are driving international traffic growth at Athens International Airport (AIA).

While the UAE primarily serves as a key hub connecting Athens to destinations like India, the Far East, and Australia, recent years have seen a surge in local traffic as the UAE emerges as a popular destination for Greek travelers.

The UAE market ranked 14th in terms of direct traffic in 2023, with traffic for the first 7 months of 2024 recording very strong growth, when compared to the same period in 2023 at 28%. Compared to 2019, January to July, direct traffic increased by 16%.

The Athens market to the UAE is benefiting by a long-lasting strong presence of Emirates and Etihad, offering multiple daily frequencies and with Athens latest additions of AEGEAN to Dubai, since November 2023 and Air Arabia to Sharjah from June 2024.

The spectacular growth of available services and capacity to the UAE, is boosting not only connecting passengers to Athens but also outbound travel from Greeks to the UAE. Based on Athens International Airport Passenger Survey, Greeks traveling to Dubai grew by 87% in the first half of 2024, compared to the same period 2023. As a result, the UAE is developing to a popular international destination for the Greeks.

The importance of the UAE market is also evident from the fact that Emirates is not only connecting Athens to the East , but the airline is highly successfully operating the only year-round service from Athens to the USA (New York).

For 2024, Athens is directly connected to 3 airport destinations with flights operated by 5 airlines – AEGEAN, Air Arabia, Etihad, Emirates and WizzAir – resulting in 41 weekly departures, or almost 6 daily (peak Summer season).

Use this link to read the full article!

 A word from us: On behalf of Athens International Airport a big thank you to the  operating carriers for their “vote of trust” in the Athens market and the wonderful collaboration!

Firmly committed to continuing working closely together with our airline colleagues for growth and development!