Transport in Athens

Direct service to and from Athens International Airport resumed on the Greek capital's metro system over the weekend, following complaints over a decision by operator STASY to split the trip between different trains.

The Transport Ministry has demanded the reversal of a decision last week by the Urban Rail Transport Company (STASY) that is forcing commuters on the metro traveling to and from Athens International Airport to change trains at Doukissis Plakentias station.

According to sources cited in the Greek media, the measure, which sparked the ire of commuters, will be scrapped in coming days.

Commuters traveling to and from Athens International Airport on the metro will have to change trains at Doukissis Plakentias station from Thursday onward, according to the Urban Rail Transport Company (STASY).

In a statement, STASY said that Doukissis Plakentias will be starting and termination point on the airport route.

After a long car chase that started on the Attiki Odos and culminated outside Greece's Parliament, police early on Monday detained an inebriated motorist.

The upheaval began at 12.45 a.m. on Monday when the 59-year-old driver stopped his car at a set of toll gates on the Attiki Odos and refused to move.

Rain on Friday morning resulted in traffic jams on many key roads in and around Athens, as a freak weather system kept schools closed in many parts of the country and had authorities on alert for flooding and wind damage.

Road deaths in Greece appear to be in steady decline, a conference of experts heard on Tuesday, with Traffic Police data showing that fatalities in the period from January to August dropped to 421 from 460 in the same period last year and 720 in all of 2016.

Two would-be robbers tried to hold up a gas station in Aegaleo, western Athens, in the early hours of Friday morning but were thwarted by the employee who had been on duty at the time.

The two perpetrators, who were both wearing masks, entered the gas station on the corner of Athinon Avenue and Ethnarchou Makariou Street at 5.20 a.m., according to the employee's account of events.

Police reopened the Athens-Corinth national highway on Tuesday morning, which had been closed to traffic due to a fire that broke out on Monday in nearby woodland that blanketed the area in thick smoke and ash.

Authorities also said that service has resumed as normal on the Proastiakos suburban railway and on KTEL Intercity buses running between the Peloponnese and the mainland.

Construction sector experts speak of a handout of 250-300 million euros to Attiki Odos SA's shareholders, due to the upcoming confirmation of Infrastructure Minister Christos Spirtzis's decision to approve a two-year extension to the concession contract for the operation of the capital's homonymous ring road.

Fresh from last year's production of Euripides' "Iphigenia in Aulis," rising duo Emilios Chilakis and Manolis Dounias direct Sophocles' 4th century BC tragedy "Antigone" as part of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival at the Roman era Herod Atticus Theater on the southwestern slope of the Acropolis hill on Wednesday, July 11.