Air Traffic Controllers have sharply criticized Greece’s Civil Aviation Authority and accused it for being responsible for the delays at the Athens International Αirport in recent days.
“Excessive delays and inconvenience at Athens airport due to errors by the Civil Aviation Authority,” said the Association of Air Traffic Controllers of Greece (AATC) in a statement speaking of errors and omissions by the Civil Aviation Authority.
In the same wavelength also airline SKY Express issued a statement on Friday holding the management of the Civil Aviation Authority responsible for the delays and inconvenience suffered by passengers and airlines over the last two days.
SKY Express stated that the extensive delays that occurred on June 10 and 11, 2026, in arrivals and departures to and from Athens International Airport “Eleftherios Venizelos”, are related to the inspection that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) decided and announced only on June 9 to carry out on the airport’s approach systems and, in particular, the instrument landing system (ILS).
Both the Association of Air Traffic Controllers of Greece and Sky Express call on the Civil Aviation Authority to assume responsibility for the delays and inconvenience.
Sky Express
in its statement, the company said throughout these two days, SKY express made every possible effort to limit the inconvenience of its passengers, immediately activating all operational support and service procedures. Its teams at the airport and at the company’s operations center worked intensively to inform passengers in a timely manner and provide them with the best possible service.
SKY express expresses its strong opposition to the choice of the CAA administration to carry out an inspection of this scale in the midst of a tourist peak – at a time when it could have been scheduled months in advance or even in the evening hours – and without prior, timely information. The lack of coordination deprived air carriers of the ability to adjust flight schedules in a timely manner, in order to limit the consequences for passengers and preserve the smooth operation of the airport. The result was extensive inconvenience for the passenger public, for airline employees, air traffic controllers, executives of the Civil Aviation Authority itself, but also for Athens International Airport “Eleftherios Venizelos” as a whole.
The company believes that actions of such gravity must entail corresponding responsibilities and calls on the Governor of the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority to assume the relevant responsibility. At the same time, it asks the competent authorities to ensure that in the future any action capable of significantly affecting the operation of the airport will be accompanied by timely and full information to the airlines, with a clear assessment of the impacts and an appropriate coordination plan, in order to protect passengers and preserve the image of Greece as an international tourist destination.
Air Traffic Controllers
The Association of Air Traffic Controllers of Greece (AATC) turned against the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), as in an official statement it stated, among others, against the backdrop of the recent delays at Eleftherios Venizelos, that the “inconvenience of passengers could have been avoided if the administration had fulfilled its obligations promptly and correctly.”
In fact, it speaks of a series of errors and omissions. The Association states that the combination of the prescribed grounding of the aircraft used by the Hellenic Aviation Authority for the aerial control of radio aids, due to a lack of spare parts, and the delayed response in finding a solution for the control of the instrument landing systems (ILS) installed at Athens International Airport (AIA), led to the required, periodic control being carried out during the summer and in high traffic conditions.
“The result was the existence of excessive delays that had chain reactions in the airline schedule and led to the inconvenience of passengers.”
It points out that the Air Traffic Controllers of the Athens Approach and the Athens International Airport Control Tower safely and professionally managed a particularly increased volume of traffic, under pressure conditions and in an environment of high operational complexity.
As reported by state-run news agency APE-MPE, the Union argues that it is unacceptable that the consequences of errors and omissions of the HCAA administration are transferred to the controllers who are on duty and are called upon to manage the pressure created in the air transport system.
At the same time, it states that it had warned as early as 2025 that the design that had been chosen would certainly lead to the grounding of the HCAA aircraft, without however taking corrective measures.
The HCAA calls on the Commander of the Civil Aviation Service “to assume his responsibilities and provide answers among others to the following questions:
- Why is the HCAA aircraft grounded? Who is responsible for the lack of spare parts?
- Why was the periodic inspection of the radio aids that serve instrument landing at AIA not scheduled earlier?
In this context, the delays in August 2025 and a operation failure in January 2026 should be recalled.
