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Athens Airport Immigration - New Procedure?

Found this on ATH website and wondering if anyone has experienced increased immigration times? Is this just for EU citizens? I am a US citizen.

I’m arriving 8/25 @ 1845 on BA from LHR and have an Aegean Flight to JTR @ 2235.

As of April 7th, 2019, the Hellenic Police has implemented EU Regulation 2017/458 which requires for all European citizens, travelling to/from Non-Schengen destinations, systematic checks against relevant databases.
In view of the above, increased waiting times might be expected at passport control, thus passengers travelling to Non-Schengen destinations are kindly requested:
to timely attend the checkpoints of the Hellenic Police, allowing sufficient time to reach the Departure Gate of their flight.
to hold a passport document rather than an id card, in order to accelerate the checks.
Passengers travelling to domestic destinations or to International destinations within the Schengen Treaty do not fall in this Regulatory framework. The following countries are member states of the Schengen Treaty:
Austria Belgium Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Italy Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxemburg Malta Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland

Posted by
186 posts

I believe you will be in the non-EU passport line so this should not impact you

Posted by
7530 posts

Sounds like all they are doing is an additional document check for EU citizens entering or leaving the Schengen Zone. So, as a US Citizen, Arriving from London, you will go through Immigration in Athens anyway, no different than before, the only difference is that the people who head to the EU Citizen lines may have delays. It may not affect you, unless they pull agents from the non-EU line to service the EU line. Same on exit.

You also are heading to a connecting flight, not sure at Athens, but at many airports that is a separate line for connecting flight immigration.