Hello,
I am flying to Greece for the first time in late May. My flight lands in Athens at 12:30. I plan on flying the same day either to Crete or Paros. Is it a big procedure or can I just deplane and go to the next terminal? I'm wondering what would be the earliest that I should schedule the flight.
I am booking this ticket separately and we are not checking baggage.
There are many variants of this question asked/answered in various sections of the
forum.
Since it appears that you are booking two separate tickets, one to Athens and one to Crete or Paros,
you will, if you check luggage, have to clear customs in Athens and then reclaim your luggage, and
recheck it with the second airline (even if it is the same airline) to the final destination, and then clear
security again.
It's possible that the originating airline could be nice and tag your bag all the way to the final destination,
but you can't count on it.
If you just have carryon, you still will clear immigration in Athens but I presume can transfer to the
next flight without having to exit secure area/claim luggage.
The second part of this is the risk you are willing to shoulder for possible delays on your inbound
flight. If your inbound is delayed and you miss the connecting flight (assuming it's a separate
ticket), then you are not protected in any way and at the mercy of the second airline. You could end
up being stuck in Athens for a while.
Athens is not that large an airport, so if everything goes right, including you not making any wrong
turns, figuring out where everything is, etc, it should not be that bad. But I am not going to suggest
a specific amount of time, and I think most folks here would say it is much more prudent to spend a
night in Athens to avoid the possibility of a much larger screwup.
As lon as your incoming flight lands on time 2 hours is more than enough time to take care of whatever you need to do before finding your new departure gate.
Where the flight that lands in Athens departed and whether you have checked bags will affect how long it takes to get from the arrival plane to your onward departure flight.
More details of your journey needed to provide useful, and reasonably accurate, estimates of how much time you should allow between flights.
If you just have carryon, you still will clear immigration in Athens but I presume can transfer to the
next flight without having to exit secure area/claim luggage.
If you’re arriving from the US, you’ll have to exit thru customs and go back thru security for your next flight. But it’s not a big deal at ATH, which seems to be pretty efficient.
When we did this last year, my searches here came up with the advice to allow 3 hours. This was our cushion for our separate flight to Santorini, and we had no trouble with the connection. Luckily our arriving flight was on time, but I did purchase a flexible fare for our Santorini flight that allowed changes in case we were late (and there is always the risk that there won’t be seats on a later flight).
Athens airport is very efficient. When you land get your bags then do passport control then exit arrivals. Both Olympic/Aegean as well as Sky express allow you to check in for your flight 48 hours before flight time. Go upstairs to Departures level, drop off your bags and clear Security and go to your gate. 2 hours is lots of time normally.
Crete has 2 airports Chania and Herklion so that gives you several flight options, Paros will have far fewer flights. If it were me I would choose to fly to Chania,
Here is why
Chania 2022 https://www.flickr.com/photos/stanbr54/albums/72177720299646015
