by Aggelos Skordas
Dublin-based low-cost airline Ryanair has announced it's planning the reduction of Greek domestic routes and proceeding with the closing of its hub in Chania, Crete, due to high “charges made by Greek airports”. In an official announcement on Wednesday, Ryanair explained that all domestic flights will be reduced by June 1 and two aircrafts (one from Chania and one from Athens) will be transferred to Germany, where it is expanding its services.
“Ryanair’s base in Chania will close, with the result of four, low-frequency flights from Chania to Venice, Vilnius, Katowice and Memmingen will be abolished. Ryanair will continue to link Athens with Mykonos, Santorini and Thessaloniki this summer. All the other domestic flights in Greece will be cancelled”, reads the company’s announcement. Among the routes to be cancelled is the one from Athens to Rhodes.
Ryanair Sales and Marketing Manager for the Eastern Mediterranean, Nikolaos Lardis said “unfortunately current airport charges at the majority of Greek airports encourage peak-only services in the summer on international routes, which require less based aircraft in Greece”, adding that the two aircrafts will be transferred to Germany where they can achieve “superior utilisation” on an annual basis. “Ryanair remains open for discussions with the relevant airport operators to develop growth schemes (for all airlines) which would justify and sustain year round services and additional aircraft permanently based at Greek airports”, he concluded.
On its behalf, Fraport Greece, the transport company managing 14 regional Greek airports since 2017, said it respects the carrier’s decision to reduce its domestic flights in Greece “due to operational reasons of the airline”. “Ryanair remains in any case a strategic partner operating in nine of 14 airports, holding a significant market share and registering great growth in recent years in international destinations. On our side, our priority is to serve the increased passenger traffic we expect at our airports this year, and our actions are focused towards that direction”, Fraport Greece Executive Director Commercial and Business Development George Vilos underlined.
Despite the reduction of its domestic routes, Ryanair appears interested in the Greek market and it continues to grow its international network out of Athens as for the upcoming summer it will be operating flights to 13 additional international destinations (Billund in Denmark, Karlsruhe, Memmingen and Frankfurt in Germany, Gdansk, Krakow, Katowice, Lodz Lubinek, Poznan, Rzeszow and Wroclaw in Poland, Lappeenranta in Finand, and Vilnius in Lithuania).
According to local media though, a Cyprus-based carrier has shown interest in connecting Chania with Cyprus, citing Chania's Mayor Tasos Vamvoukas in flashnews.gr indicating that the negative effect of Ryanair’s departure could be overturned as other low-cost airlines are already showing interest in the Cretan city. In addition to the connection with Cyprus, the yet unnamed carrier is already considering the expansion of domestic routes from and to Chania, Vamvoukas explained.
