Transport in Thessaloniki

Fraport Greece has this week begun a 100-million-euro investment to turn Thessaloniki's Makedonia Airport into the main alternative gateway to Greece and a connection hub for Southeast Europe and Asia.

The 14 regional airports that Fraport Greece manages, including Thessaloniki's Makedonia Airport (pictured), recorded a 10.9 percent annual increase in passenger traffic last month, reaching 4.36 million passengers.

This was primarily thanks to the 13.7 percent yearly rise in arrivals from abroad, to 3.77 million.

Red tape and the absence of an investment-friendly environment continue to dog Greece, Fraport Greece chief executive Alexander Zinell testified on Tuesday at the InvestGR forum in Athens.

Low-fare carrier Wizz Air and Fraport Greece, which manages Thessaloniki's airport, have agreed the Hungarian airline will begin three new flights per week between Thessaloniki and Vienna, while Qatar Airways will soon launch a service linking Makedonia Airport with Doha.

Dense fog in northern Greece caused cancellations of flights to and from Thessaloniki's Makedonia Airport on Tuesday morning.

According to the airport's website, five flights from the northern port to city - to Athens, the southern Peloponnese town of Kalamata and the cities of Istanbul and Bucharest - had to be cancelled due to conditions.

Police in Thessaloniki have arrested the former chief of the northern port city's transport authority for running up debts to the EFKA social security funds of more than 2.35 million euros.

Christos Stefanidis, 74, stands accused of delaying social security payments due by the OASTH company. The period under question appears to be February 2017, according to the ANA-MPA news agency.

Budget airline easyJet says runway maintenance work at the airport in Greece's second city of Thessaloniki is forcing it to reroute passengers through alternative airports until December 21 at least.

The extension of the tourist season through the attraction of tourists and new markets, such as Asian, is the biggest target for the development of Thessaloniki airport, which has the features of a metropolitan airport.

An overall increase of 11.4 percent in arrivals during the month of September was reported by Fraport at the 14 airports it manages across Greece.

According to Fraport, domestic passenger traffic increased by 5.9 percent year-over-year last month, while international passenger traffic rose 12.6 percent, with Thessaloniki, Mytilini and Kos seeing the largest increase.

A collision between an automobile and an urban transit (OASTH) bus in the city center of Thessaloniki left three people injured Friday morning.

According to the fire brigade, six firefighters were dispatched to the scene and performed an extraction operation to save two people, the driver and a passenger, who were pinned inside the car. The third injury was a passenger on the bus.