Skiathos airport will be available for international flights from 1 July 2020.
The Deputy Minister of Civil Protection arrived at Skiathos airport on 29/6/2020 for the preparations of the beginning of charter flights on Wednesday July 1, 2020 after the reopening of all Greek airports, during COVID-19 crisis (Relevant video below).
We did not publish any information till now since everything is subject to change.
Unfortunately COVID-19 crisis was not treated by EU countries as one; instead each country followed individual procedures without any interface with the rest 24 EU countries.
Maybe that was not a big problem for some countries, but for some other countries will be critical… “Will” because we will see the financial impact later this year, in November-December.
The impact of COVID-19 on air transport cannot be calculated precisely. Revenue from tourism industry is the major income for the Greek economy.
Missing of common procedures by EU members on COVID-19 fight seems to be a bigger enemy than COVID-19 itself. Nobody can book a flight without risking losing his money.
So here we are talking about trust on an industry. How clients (passengers) will trust the air transport to schedule and book their holidays?
Even when a vaccine will be available for COVID-19, the matter of trust will remain, since we may have COVID-20, 21 etc…
We are writing this text 24 hours before the first flight of the season, but are we still waiting to see if finally Air Serbia will be allowed to arrive in Skiathos. We understand that situation with COVID-19 is continuously changing every day, but also some people should understand that air transport and tourism cannot follow those rapid sort-term notice changes…
For the moment regarding Skiathos airport traffic, the following airlines withdrawn their schedules for 2020:
Blue Panorama (Milan-Malpensa, Bergamo, Rome)
British Airways City Flyer (London-City)
Arkia (Tel Aviv)
Changes – Reductions
TUI postponed their schedules from 1 July to: later than August 1, 2020. However as of June, 29 2020, TUI begins complete cancellation of Greek destinations for 2020, such as Preveza. However, Greece may open the borders for UK travelers after 15 July 2020.
On Friday, July 3, 2020, an Enter Air from London-Gatwick, was supposed to arrive at Skiathos. We will never find out if there were bookings on that flight, since they are not allowed to land before 15 of July.
Scandinavian Airlines – SAS reduced from 8 weekly flights to 1 (Copenhagen only).
Volotea will start just one flight from Italy on 7 July 2020 (Venice) but for a very short period till early September.
We will publish more details for Skiathos traffic 2019 vs 2020 later in July.