Spata-Artemida

Eight new destinations and six new airlines are on the air map of Athens. The city is restarting, after two very difficult seasons, as the pandemic "hit" the city break destinations particularly. Travelers who last summer turned to direct connections to smaller tourist destinations, return to Athens, with the city center already full of visitors.

Passenger traffic at Athens International Airport declined by 84.2% year-on-year in November to just 263,000 travelers, making it the ninth consecutive month of decline in the double digits.

Given the lockdown that took effect from November 7, passenger numbers on domestic flights shrank 80% and on international flights by 86%.

Positive signs are coming from potential residential property buyers - both Greeks and foreigners - even though the vast majority of interested parties are only seeing what's on offer on the market without deciding on the acquisition of a property.

Newborn ring-tailed lemurs play inside the shuttered Attica Zoological Park, in Spata, east of Athens, on Thursday. Five lemurs were born after the site was closed to the public as part of health restrictions for the new coronavirus pandemic. The government is planning next week to ease restrictions against the Covid-19 which has so far helped keep infection rates low in Greece.

The eastern Attica Municipality of Spata-Artemida has leased an airplane to bring back a group of students and teachers from the local high school who are on a trip to France so that they may avoid the return journey by bus via Italy.

The Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport said it would pay a subsidy of 24,608,000 euros through a tender for 12 airline services to several Greek islands.

The tender will also set the maximum charter rates according to the season and the minimum frequency of flights.

Greek airports posted an all-time high in terms of passenger traffic last year, which amounted to almost 65.4 million, up 5 percent or 3.1 million passengers from 2018, Civil Aviation Authority data showed on Wednesday.

Athens International Airport is posting record figures ahead of the invitation for the submission of binding offers for 30 percent of its shares.

AIA - whose official title is Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos - registered a historic record of 25.57 million passengers in 2019 - 1.4 million passengers or 6 percent more than in 2018.

Greece will shortlist investors for a minority stake in Athens International Airport (AIA) next month, the head of the country's privatization agency said on Thursday.

Greece holds a 55 percent stake in the airport and 10 investment schemes submitted expressions of interest for the 30 percent stake on sale in October.

Travel receipts posted a 13.6 percent annual increase in the first seven months of the year to 9.15 billion euros, while air arrivals grew 3.7 percent in January-August, according to figures released by the Institute of the Greek Tourism Confederation (INSETE).