Air travel in Greece
has been severely disrupted this weekend after a failure in the country’s
air-traffic control system forced airlines to cancel, delay and divert hundreds
of flights across the region.
Athens
International Airport said operations were slowly beginning to resume on Sunday.
“The Hellenic Aviation Service Provider started gradual release of some flights
in accordance with air-traffic control capacity availability. Efforts for full
restoration of the technical issues are continued,” the airport said.
Aegean Airlines,
the country’s largest carrier, canceled dozens of flights, mostly to and from
Athens. In a statement to passengers, the airline said a “technical issue
affecting the radio frequency systems of the Hellenic Aviation Service
Provider, which has been ongoing since the early morning hours continues to
cause a significant reduction in capacity within Greek airspace”.
The disruption
caused widespread diversions across Europe
and the Mediterranean.
Flights heading for Athens were sent to Rome and Dubrovnik. Passengers bound
for Thessaloniki on SAS landed instead in Budapest, while a Transavia flight
from Amsterdam was diverted to Tirana, Albania. A Vilnius-to-Heraklion service
heading to Crete was rerouted to Larnaca, Cyprus.
Low-cost carrier
Jet2 was among the airlines scrambling to aid stranded passengers. One British
traveler, John Berry, told The
Independent, “Hopefully we will still get home tonight. Just waiting for
the flight LS1709 from Manchester to take off to collect us, as this is the
last flight out of Athens for Jet2 until February.” That Jet2 recovery flight
later departed and was scheduled to arrive in Athens around 7:00 p.m., about
four hours behind schedule.
EasyJet also
canceled flights from Manchester to Athens, notifying customers, “This is due
to an ATH airport related airspace closure. The disruption to your flight is
outside of our control and is considered to be an extraordinary circumstance.”
British Airways
canceled one of its morning departures from Heathrow to Athens. Aegean,
meanwhile, grounded its evening Athens-to-Heathrow flight, which also led to
the cancellation of the overnight return to Greece.
Ryanair canceled
several routes from Athens, including flights to Malta,
Rome and Bologna.
Under European air
passenger rights regulations, travelers whose flights are canceled are entitled
to be rerouted on the next available flight — even on another airline if
necessary — and must be provided with meals, accommodation and assistance while
they wait.
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