Flight delays have become one of the most persistent headaches for travelers moving through Greek airports this summer, with new data from Europe’s air navigation watchdog placing the country among the continent’s worst performers.
According to Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, Greece accounted for 11 percent of all en route air traffic flow management delay time across the European network between July 27 and August 2. That is the third largest share on the continent, behind only France, which recorded 40 percent, and Spain, at 14 percent.
En route delays are the minutes lost while a flight is already in the air, typically because controllers have to slow or reroute traffic to keep airspace within safe capacity limits. Eurocontrol attributed Greece’s delays specifically to capacity constraints and staffing shortages within air traffic control services, the same factors it cited for France and Spain.
Where the delays are concentrated
Of that European network total, 7 percent of delay time was linked to the Athens Area Control Center, which oversees the airspace around the capital and is typically the busiest in the country. Another 4 percent was tied to the Macedonia Control Center in northern Greece.
The pattern was not unique to Greece. Across Europe, capacity and staffing issues were behind 64 percent of all en route delays of this kind last week, with Eurocontrol singling out France, Spain and Greece as the countries most affected.
There was a broader silver lining, however. En route delays across the entire European network were down 28 percent compared with the same week in 2025, even though they rose 11 percent from the previous week, a sign that this summer’s disruptions, while sharp, remain smaller than what travelers experienced a year ago.
Traffic keeps climbing
Part of the pressure comes from sheer volume. Greece placed seventh among the ten busiest air traffic markets in Europe, averaging 2,842 arrivals and departures a day, a figure that was already up 1 percent from the previous week and 5 percent higher than the same period last year.
Spain led the field with 6,541 daily flights, followed by the United Kingdom with 6,483, Germany with 5,394, Italy with 5,248, France with 4,901 and Turkey with 4,340.
Greece’s 5 percent annual growth was among the strongest of the top ten markets, trailing only Italy and Poland, which each posted 7 percent increases, and Spain, which grew 6 percent. Traffic fell by 1 percent in both Germany and the Netherlands over the same period.
For a country whose economy leans heavily on tourism, the numbers point to a familiar tension: air traffic to Greece is growing faster than in most of Europe, but the infrastructure managing that traffic, particularly staffing at air traffic control centers, has not kept pace, according to Eurocontrol’s findings.
