1995: An Airport Opens on a Greek Island

June 14, 1995

An airport was officially opened on Greece’s Ikaria Island, which is located in the Aegean Sea. More specifically, Ikaria Island National Airport Ikaros is near the village of Faros on the eastern end of the island. The airport’s manager is Athanasios Kritikos.

Two Greek airlines now use Ikaria Island National Airport Ikaros to connect the island with other parts of Greece. One of these airlines is Olympic Air S.A. (a subsidiary of Aegean Airlines), which provides flights to and from Lemnos International Airport on Lemnos Island (likewise in the Aegean Sea), Athens International Airport (AIA), and Thessaloniki Airport. The other airline is Sky Express, which also provides flights between Ikaria Island National Airport  Ikaros and AIA.

“Flying to the island of Ikaria can be a daunting experience,” noted Louisa Parks in her 2020 book Benefit-Sharing in Environmental Governance (published by Routledge). “The island’s airport is on its windier side, and its geography is driven home as the plane is buffeted from side to side, aiming for the runway sandwiched between rocky walls and coast.”

Parks, however, also emphasized what she saw as the more appealing aspects of Ikaria Island National Airport Ikaros. “The airport also offers a first glimpse of the closeness among Ikarians,” she wrote in Benefit-Sharing in Environmental Governance. “A policeman picking up his colleague, the greetings between everyone in the arrivals hall and everyone in departures — the lady who runs the car hire telling you to leave the car by the airport with the keys in the ignition when you leave — everyone knows it’s one of hers.”

Photo Credit: Catenaccio (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

For more information on Ikaria Island National Airport Ikaros, please check out   http://www.ypa.gr/en/our-airports/kratikos-aerolimenas-ikarias-ikaros-kair and https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/ikaria-national-airport/m0283q_p?hl=en