Athens Airport Guide (And How I Almost Missed My Flight)

I decided to write this blog post because I arrived 2 hours early and still almost missed my flight. Nowhere have I read that Athens Airport is chaotic and this unorganised, even in the low season when I visited. Which is why in this Athens Airport Guide I will share with you my story and give tips for departures and renting a car, so you can be better prepared and not have a stressful time like I had.

In this blog post you will learn how early to really arrive, where delays actually happen and how to avoid unnecessary stress.

✅ If you’re looking for a custom travel plan, find out more about my personalised itinerary service here.

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📖 Read my My 3 Days in Athens Itinerary: See the Best of Athens blog post.

Athens Airport Overview: Quick Facts

Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos is the largest international airport in Greece serving both domestic and international (and overseas) flights. So, if you’re visiting Greece, especially from the US, most likely you will fly to/from Athens Airport. Unless you’re flying within Europe, then you can find direct flights to islands too.

Nevertheless, at some point, you will probably pass through the Athens Airport. It is the 16th busiest airport in Europe and 2nd busiest and largest in the Balkans, right after Istanbul Airport (which I had no idea about when I was flying there).

With that, the airport is truly insanely busy, even in the low season, which is also due to the poor queue management imo (I’ll talk about this soon).

✅ Check the flight prices here.

How Early You Should Arrive at Athens Airport

And that’s the tricky part. The official recommendation is to arrive 2h for the short-haul flight and 3h for the long-haul, which is also a textbook for me and how I practically do it all the time (and I fly a lot!).

So, I had to drop off my check-in bag and I arrived 2h before because that always gives me enough time to leave the bags, pass passport and security checks and even have some time to eat/drink something. I don’t love to be at the airport longer than necessary, so I never arrive too early, plus with check-in bags often times they don’t even open the counter until the 2h before the flight.

Which is why I applied the same logic for the Athens Airport, but I didn’t know that the queues would be so long and they would move in very slowly. Basically, me and my husband stood in the queue for 45 min (and we arrived 2h before the flight) and we still didn’t drop the bags. Obviously, we started panicking because we had about 1h before the gate closed.

It appeared though that this was a quite common situation at the airport, so basically everyone moves slowly in the queue, but if your flight leaves in about 45 min to 1h, then they call out all the passengers for that flight and you have a “speedy” check-in.

So, I would advise that you arrive 3h before for the short-haul and 4h before the long-haul flight, because that would mean that you may actually leave your bags on time.

Bag Drop Chaos: The First Bottleneck

I won’t repeat myself here, but dropping the bag was the first bottleneck for us that I didn’t experience anywhere before (India was unorganised too, but not like this).

It’s just safe to say that you may expect to queue 1h for the check-in bag, that’s why I said to arrive one hour before you’d usually be at the airport.

I believe the main problem was that there were many flights departing at the same time, especially with SkyExpress that we flew with. They may not have enough staff, though about 9 counters were open and it was still very slow!

The best advice here is to fly with a carry-on bag if possible to avoid queueing for the bags altogether.

Boarding Pass & Passport Control: Another Unexpected Queue

Just when we thought about how we finally dropped the bags and now we can even have some time to buy coffees and something to eat, we had another shock – the passport and boarding passes control had a long queue too!

At this point things started to be really ridiculous, and I didn’t know if I should cry or laugh. I went to the lady working there to say that we have a flight leaving in about 40 min and she said she will call us when it’s our time lol!

So, we waited for another 20 minutes to have our tickets scanned, so we could finally enter the passengers-only area, after which she called all the passengers for our flight (and other flights departing at the same time).

Luckily, we have EU passports, so we could go into the fast-lane for passports. For non-EU citizens, after they finally screened their boarding passes, they had to wait for the passport checks too. I don’t know how long that took, but everyone was so nervous and stressed, you could see it.

Security Checks: Faster, but Still Stressful

You can guess probably – yes, there was yet another queue for the security checks, and our flight was leaving in about 25 min, which means the gates were closing in about 10.

By this point, I was so stressed, I couldn’t hold myself. Even the fast lane was queuing because everyone was trying to make it to their flight on time.

The security check took 10 min, so we had about 5 min before the gate closed, which means we had to run. If you ask me what the airport is like, I couldn’t tell you a thing, because I didn’t experience it at all.

We were one of the last few passengers boarding and I could only buy us water, there was no time for literally anything else. Oh, and we managed to pee. But, that was about it.

Rental Cars at Athens Airport: Europcar & Others

I also wanted to add a note on renting a car because that’s what we did, so we could road trip in the Peloponnese.

We rented a car with Europcar, which we were happy with, but for some reason, they’re the most popular rental car house at the Athens Airport. I think it’s because they have the best value for price and offers.

Anyways, we queued for 45 min to get the car keys, pay for the insurance, sign the contract and all that stuff.

So, I would advise you not to have a strict schedule on the day you’re picking up a car because you may get delayed here.

When we were returning it, we did it in 5 minutes, so there were no delays there. As I said, I don’t know if it’s always like that with Europcar only, or was it like that just on the day/time we were picking it, but something to note.

✅ If you’re renting a car, I recommend DiscoverCars for best rates and flexible cancellation policies.

📖 Read my Peloponnese Itinerary for 7 Days: Ancient Greece Road Trip blog post.

Practical Tips for Navigating Athens Airport

Final Thoughts: Don’t Let the Airport Ruin Your Trip

We had a great time in Greece, until that very last moment. Of course, it didn’t ruin our overall trip at all, but I wish I knew these things before just so I was prepared. Also, as an INTJ, I’m such a control-freak and super-organised person, so this was a nightmare for me.

And here being prepared makes all the difference. No one warned us. Now you know.

Where to Stay in Athens

I definitely recommend staying in the city centre, especially in the Monastiraki area. I stayed there and personally, it was a great decision!

The area is vibrant, full of cafes and restaurants, it’s safe, and close to all the attractions that I will mention in this 3 days in Athens itinerary.

But an even more important recommendation is to stay in a hotel with an Acropolis view! For me, this was the highlight of our stay in Athens, because we were literally waking up and going to sleep with the Acropolis view.

✅ We stayed in an apartment called Panoramic Suite and had the whole place for ourselves. The terrace was huge and amazing and the views were out of this world. Additionally, we could also enjoy the Acropolis view from the living room and bedroom, but we spent most of our time on the terrace because the weather was nice.

📖 Read my Top 10 Hotels in Athens with Amazing Acropolis View blog post for more.

✅ If you’re looking for a custom travel plan, find out more about my personalised itinerary service here.

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