Heraklion Airport has quietly but powerfully confirmed its second-busiest airport status for Greece. Comfortably surpassing Thessaloniki’s 7.2 million, a startling 9.2 million passengers passed through its gates in 2024. The difference between them is a significant two million travellers, enough to fill a whole metropolis. Nobody realized a mid-sized island airport could swing that kind of weight.
Heraklion Airport’s Unstoppable Expanding Development
Heraklion’s “Nikos Kazantzakis” Airport noted a 30% rise in passenger traffic in February 2025 vs the same month in 2024, with tourism at an all-time high. From 96,267, this increase equated to 125,533 passengers. Simply put, someone has been really busy dragging bags. Traffic increased 6.1% between January and February 2025, rising to 5.32 million passengers from 5.02 million the same month the year before among all 39 Greek airports. Leading among the 24 facilities run by the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority (HCAA), Heraklion Airport boasts an impressive 14% increase during the first two months alone.
Principal Figures and Highlights:
National Air Traffic: From 45,464 at the start of 2024, 46,900 flights took off or landed across Greece in the first two months of 2025, a 3.2% rise.
Greece’s overall aviation traffic in 2024, a 9.3% increase over 2023, came to 79.4 million passengers.
The major players in 2024:
- Athens: A staggering 31.8 million travelers, proving once again that the Acropolis isn’t the only thing holding Greece together.
- Heraklion: A cozy 9.2 million visitors descended upon Crete—with patience and SPF 50.
- Thessaloniki: 7.2 million souls, each wondering if they really need five gyros for the flight home.
- Rhodes: 6.9 million heading straight for historic ruins and possibly away from their life choices.
- Corfu: 4.3 million passengers, most of them armed with questionable pronunciation attempts of “ker-ky-ra.”
- Chania: 3.9 million, proving Crete has room for everyone—or at least those willing to share elbow space.
- Kos: 3.1 million, some undoubtedly asking, “Is Kos like Rhodes’ cooler little cousin?”
- Santorini: 2.8 million fighting for one iconic sunset angle and a donkey ride that no one really needs.
- Zakynthos: 2.2 million guaranteed to ask, “Which beach has the shipwreck again?”
- Mykonos: 1.6 million—a manageable number by Mykonian standards, or as locals call it, “Tuesday.”
And if you’re wondering where Heraklion sits globally, think about this: the airport currently flies more European flights than Athens. It challenges the giants of the continent and rules the Greek islands.
March Mania: Travel Demand Attaching
Though the official start of the tourism season is summer, don’t tell the airlines this. Early this year, Flights for Heraklion started ramping up; massive arrivals are expected from March 27, when the first charter flights will land on the island. Approvals for slots and schedules are already considerably above those of the previous year, suggesting another season-breaking record. Busy putting out new connections to meet this increasing demand, operators are:
Starting March 30, Sun d’Or Airlines flies two seasonal routes from Israel to Heraklion and Mykonos.
With Crete seeing a sizable portion of the 70,000 more seats TUI Group has introduced for Greece in 2025,
Heraklion Airport will provide additional direct routes to and from Istanbul and improved internal links to seven other Greek airports.
Demand comes from sources beyond conventional marketplaces. Poland has joined the bandwagon with additional flights to Heraklion from Warsaw and Krakow, while Spain, a market traditionally chilly toward Crete, is also boosting it. Airlines will link Heraklion straight to Madrid and Barcelona for the first time. Some things do not change, though. Germany, the UK, France, and the Netherlands remain strong as Crete’s tourist backbone accounts for the lion’s share of visits year after year.
With the upcoming building of a new airport in Kastelli, Heraklion Airport is preparing for its next transformation. It rides this tide of expansion with an evident blend of ambition and inevitable outcome. It serves as a bridge, not only to Crete but also to the several marketplaces spread over Europe.
