Thessaloniki Metro’s launch in 2020 “technically impossible”, according to Ellaktor

The construction company that is building the Thessaloniki metro, Ellaktor, has contradicted Attiko Metro’s timeline that the main line will open in 2020.

In a letter to Attiko Metro dated August 9, Ellaktor stated that “your declarations to the press that the project will be completed and operations start in 2020, despite the fact that you know and have long been briefed by the concessionaire that this is technically impossible, are groundless.”

The Thessaloniki metro system, complete with 13 modern center platform stations and state-of-the-art trains that will be run without drivers, was expected to be fully operational in 2020.

Ellaktor further note that is is unclear when the Thessaloniki metro will be completed by due to the “lack of a realistic timetable.”

Earlier this year, Greece’s former Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras launched the first completed section of the ‘95% completed’ metro train network of Thessaloniki. At the time, he noted that the testing of the lines and trains will begin in the first half of 2019 and that Thessaloniki’s citizens will be in a position to use the system “ not at the end of 2020 but by February 2020.”

The construction on the Thessaloniki metro began in 2006 but came to a halt due to archaeological discoveries. The project, which is 75 percent financed by the European Union, was originally expected to be completed in 2016.