Thessaloniki Airport

Athens is the hub, but Thessaloniki is the airport where Greece shows its versatile side. Right on the Thermaic Gulf, Greek Airbus jets land next to ATR turboprops, low-cost aircraft from half of Europe next to leisure airlines from Great Britain and Scandinavia – and not only in summer. Since one of the two runways was built a kilometer out into the sea, many approaches come in directly over the water. Anyone traveling in northern Greece should have “Makedonia” Airport on their list – and know beforehand where the limits lie here.

From wartime airfield to Greece’s second-largest airport

The history of the airport reaches far back. Already in World War I there was an airfield near Thessaloniki that the Allies used on the so-called Macedonian Front. When exactly it became a civil airport is not answered consistently by the sources: 1930 is given as the opening year, 1938 as the start of construction at the current site and 1948 as the start of regular civil traffic after World War II had interrupted the plans. What is certain is that the airport was expanded with NATO funds in 1965 and got a new terminal in the process.

For a long time, the airport was named after the district of Mikra, at whose edge it lies. In 1993, it received its current name, “Makedonia” – after the region whose capital is Thessaloniki. Before 1997, when the city was European Capital of Culture, the terminal was modernized and expanded. The biggest changes, however, only came after privatization.

Fraport Greece and privatization

In the course of the Greek debt crisis, the state decided to hand its regional airports over to private operators. The bid was won by a consortium of Frankfurt’s Fraport AG and the Greek Copelouzos Group. Since April 11, 2017, the joint company Fraport Greece has operated a total of 14 airports for 40 years – including Thessaloniki as the largest, as well as holiday destinations like Corfu, Rhodes and Skiathos. The airports themselves remain state property.

With the concession, the operator committed to investments at all 14 airports. In Thessaloniki, a large part of it went into a new terminal building: construction began in September 2018 and was finished in February 2021. The new building brought additional check-in desks, twelve new gates numbered 01 to 12 and more space for shops. The gates of the old terminal have been numbered 13 to 24 since.

The numbers show the investment is paying off: according to Fraport Greece, Thessaloniki counted exactly 7,982,798 passengers in 2025, up 8.2 percent from the previous year. Before the pandemic, in 2019, it was just under 6.9 million. Across all 14 airports, Fraport Greece reached a good 37 million passengers in 2025.

The runway that grew into the sea

For spotters, the runway layout is the most exciting chapter. Thessaloniki has two paved runways that cross roughly in the middle. The main runway 10/28 was long only 2,440 meters – tight for heavy, fully loaded aircraft. Work therefore went on for years on an extension: on an artificial landfill in the Thermaic Gulf, the runway grew by 1,000 meters to 3,440 meters. Structurally the project was complete in March 2019, and the extended runway went into operation in September 2020. Along with the runway, a parallel taxiway was built on the landfill.

The second runway 16/34 is just over 2,400 meters long; sources give values between 2,410 and 2,424 meters. It runs roughly north-south and complements the main runway when wind or traffic require it.

According to reference works, the approach from the west leads over the sea, with the city to the left of the aircraft. From the east, on the other hand, aircraft come in low over the suburbs, only a few kilometers from the first hills of Halkidiki. Which direction is active at any time is decided by the wind, as everywhere – how to gauge that beforehand is explained in the article Understanding the runway direction in use at an airport.

Aegean, Olympic and SKY express: the Greek background hum

Everyday life in Thessaloniki is determined by three Greek airlines that station aircraft here. Aegean Airlines is the largest of them and uses Thessaloniki as a second hub alongside Athens. Its jet fleet consists exclusively of Airbus types of the A320 family – from the classic A320 to the A320neo and A321neo. From Thessaloniki, Aegean flies to Athens, to Greek islands and to numerous destinations in Europe, including several German cities.

The Aegean subsidiary Olympic Air is almost even more interesting for spotters. It flies exclusively turboprops – ATR 72-600, ATR 42-600 and a few aging Dash 8-100s – and connects Thessaloniki with regional airports and the islands of the northern Aegean. You recognize it by the six rings on the tail, which recall the tradition of the former Olympic Airways.

Third in the group is SKY express. The airline, based on Crete, mixes ATR turboprops with A320neos and A321neos and has Thessaloniki as one of its bases. Besides domestic routes, it also offers international connections, including to Düsseldorf. If you want to photograph an ATR and an Airbus of the same airline side by side, SKG is a good place for it. If you can’t yet reliably tell the two turboprop families apart, the article Telling the ATR and Dash 8 apart helps.

Low-cost and leisure airlines: Europe as a guest

Besides the Greek airlines, low-cost carriers shape the picture. Ryanair maintains a base in Thessaloniki and is accordingly seen often with its Boeing 737-800s and 737 MAX 8s. easyJet, Wizz Air and other low-cost airlines are added. With Ryanair especially, the offering changes markedly from season to season – routes come and go, and the number of stationed aircraft fluctuates.

Thessaloniki is well connected from the German-speaking region. According to published schedules, Lufthansa, Eurowings, Austrian Airlines and Swiss also fly to the airport besides Aegean. In summer, leisure airlines from Great Britain, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe are added, as well as airlines from the Balkans and the Middle East that you rarely get in front of your lens in Germany.

A piece of history is also tied to Thessaloniki: Ellinair, which ceased operations in 2021, had its headquarters and main base here. If you sort old photos from the years before the pandemic, you may still find its Airbus jets in them with a bit of luck.

Spotting in Thessaloniki: what you need to know

Unlike in Munich, for example, Thessaloniki has no official visitor park and – as far as is known – no observation deck. Spotters therefore photograph from publicly accessible places outside the airport grounds. Thanks to the waterside location and the runway extension into the sea, approaches over the gulf in particular yield appealing subjects with water in the foreground. For frame-filling pictures you generally need a telephoto lens; for overviews with sea and city, a medium focal length is often enough.

The framework is important: according to reference works, the airport is also used by the Hellenic Air Force. In Greece, photographing military installations and aircraft is prohibited, and the authorities take that seriously. How far this can go is shown by the Kalamata case of 2001, in which spotters were arrested as suspected spies and charged. Today, spotting at civilian airports in Greece is mostly relaxed – but only if you know the rules. The article Plane spotting in Greece today provides a current overview.

Getting there and planning your day

The airport lies southeast of downtown at the edge of Mikra. According to the airport, the city bus lines 1X by day and 1N at night run to the center, the train station and the KTEL Makedonia intercity bus station. Lines 2X and 3X connect to the metro, and line 79 runs to the eastern interchange. The stop is in the arrivals area in front of exit 4. By car, you reach the airport via the ring motorway and the feeder roads in the southeast of the city.

According to the airport, the terminal is open around the clock. What matters for spotters are mainly the daily waves in which domestic flights, low-cost rotations and international connections come together. In summer there is much more going on than in winter, when part of the holiday traffic drops out. It never gets completely quiet, though – the domestic routes to Athens and the islands run all year.

Thessaloniki combines well with a vacation. Tips on how to reconcile family, beach and spotting are in the article Plane spotting on vacation; the Greece guide gives an overview of the best destinations across the country.

Thessaloniki compared

Within Greece, Athens Airport is the clear hub, with more long-haul and more foreign airlines. Thessaloniki is smaller but noticeably livelier all year than the pure leisure airports. On the islands such as Heraklion on Crete or Rhodes, charter and low-cost traffic dominates in summer, and it gets noticeably quieter there in winter.

For subjects with water and landscape, the islands are a class of their own anyway: the classic is Kanoni at Corfu Airport with its view over the lagoon, and the low approaches at the runway end of Skiathos are legendary. If you travel on through the Balkans, Sofia Airport is another airport within reach.

Conclusion

Thessaloniki Airport is not a spotter paradise with a visitors’ hill and deck, but a varied airport, busy all year, with a character of its own. The runway extension into the sea, the new terminal and a traffic mix of Aegean Airbuses, Olympic and SKY express turboprops and low-cost jets from all over Europe make it a worthwhile destination – all the more so if you are traveling in northern Greece anyway.

The framework is decisive: the airport is also used by the military, and Greece sets clear limits on photographing military installations. If you stick to public locations, consistently keep the military out of frame and check wind, light and schedule beforehand, you go home with good pictures and without trouble.