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New Airport Levy to be imposed to all airports, lowers children age

The Greek government expands the airport levy of 12 euros for flights departing from Greece to all airports including the regional airports. The levy will start to be imposed after the operation date of the 14 regional airport and until November 1st 2024. After this date, the levy will be down to 3 EUR for departures from all airports.

The new airport levy of €12 will also be imposed on children passengers over the age of 2. To date, the levy was imposed to all passengers over 5 years old. According to government sources, lowering the passengers’ age “will bring significant increase of revenues” state broadcaster ERT reported.

The levy was determined according to destination, with its cost being  €12 euro for Schengen countries, up to €22 euro for all countries outside the Schengen area.

An amendment of the law “Unified Levey for the Modernization and Development of Airports” -also called “spatosimo” – has been submitted by Infrastructure Minister Christos Spirtzis and Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos. The Unified Airport Levy regulation was pending since November 2014.

If I remember correct, this implementation of the unified levy was delayed until the signatures for the privatization of the 14 regional airports between the Greek Privatization Fund and Fraport were on the papers.

According to website newsmoney.gr , exempted are passengers using water airports, passengers on transit (same flight number and same departing aircraft) and transit passengers continuing their journey on the same of different airline within 24 hours. There were thoughts to impose the levy also on transit passengers.

On the exemption list are also passengers on state flights transferring VIPs, passengers who land at airports due to extreme weather conditions, aircraft defect etc, and passengers on board for official sports events.

The Levy cashed for flight departing Athens airport “Eleftherios Venizelos” goes to 75% for the airport since 1995, the rest 25% for the Civil Aviation.

The levy imposed to 14 regional airports that have been privatized will go 100% to Fraport Greece and thus in a special account “Airports Development and Modernization Fund” at the Bank of Greece.

The 14 regional airports privatized to Fraport are: Aktion, Chania (Crete), Kavala, Kefalonia, Kerkyra (Corfu), Kos, Mitilini, Mykonos, Rhodes, Samos, Santorini, Skiathos, Thessaloniki and Zakynthos

The levy from other airports will go 50% for financing operational needs, equipment and infrastructure projects, and 50% to Civil Aviation.

As mentioned in the amendment “the fee should be uniform for all airports, regardless of the final destination of departing passengers, for reasons of equal treatment of passengers who start from different airports, creating healthy competition between airports and for practical reasons of uniformity application.”

I think until today, the levy from the 14 regional airports was lower than for departures from Athens Airport.

Note: I did not understand as of when the new unified airport levy will be imposed. Apologies. Ask your travel agent.

PS I don’t know about healthy competition but it looks like unhealthy competitiveness in tourism when suddenly flights  — i.e. return holiday flights – from Greece’s most touristic islands will be more expensive when compared to neighboring countries. But after 2024 we will be very cheap and really competitive :p

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2 comments

  1. There’s nothing like taxing children for raising revenue! But hey, Comrade Tsipras: there’s a lot more you could tax as well. How about the old Victorian window tax, which led to poor people bricking up their windows as they could not afford the taxes? Or perhaps you could tax animals. All these stray dogs and cats in the streets of Greece don’t pay much in taxes, so obviously you need to tax these more efficiently. And now I think about it, there is a large building in Athens — some sort of lunatic asylum, I am told — whose inmates pay very little in tax, despite being apparently extremely wealthy. I suggest you start with the lunatics and crooks living there: it’s name (in Greeklish) is Vouli.

  2. Unbelievable, a grab for money by a Greedy Government/private airport business. Does the Greek government not realise that prices in Greece are already much higher than other European holiday destinations since the addition of extra taxes on the Islands. For example they are competing with the likes of Tenerife where a pint of beer is as low as €1! I for one, will re-consider my three trips a year to Kos if they keep thinking that tourists are there too be taken advantage of. Funny that this is happening a year after privatisation !! Call me cynical if you wish!
    The losers will be the great Greek people