Athens air traffic control strained by tourism surge, safety concerns mount

Air traffic controllers report making superhuman efforts to prevent accidents by ordering planes to slow down or alter trajectories; passengers experience frequent multi-hour delays.

Each summer, the ancient crossroads of Greece becomes a modern bottleneck, as millions of tourists descend on a country whose skies were never built to hold them all. In Athens, air traffic controllers guide nearly triple the low-season volume of flights through airspace complicated by regional conflict and geopolitical tension, doing so with barely half the staff the work demands. A €300 million modernization effort is underway, but the gap between what the system can bear and what it is being asked to carry will not close until 2028—leaving human will and hard-won experience as the primary m

Athens air traffic control strained by tourism surge, safety concerns mount

Related Coverage

Get The Register in your inbox