Twenty-six Greek islands have an airport. Twenty-eight airports serve them, because Crete has three. The count comes from the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority’s register of airport operators, checked on 13 July 2026, and from Fraport Greece, which runs 14 regional airports under concession, 11 of them on islands.
Now the part the lists leave out. The Greek islands with airports are not the same thing as the islands you can fly to, because a runway is not a route. Some of these airports take flights from other countries for five months of the year and hops from Athens for the other seven. Some see a handful of flights a week, on a small aircraft, and they sell out.
The reason to care is not the landing. An airport island is a place a trip can start or end, and a trip that starts and ends at different islands never pays for the journey back.
Every Greek island with an airport, by island group
Twenty-six islands, six island groups, one column that decides your trip. “International in season” means the airport takes flights from other countries, concentrated between spring and autumn. “Domestic from Athens” means the way in is a hop from the mainland.
| Island | Airport (IATA) | Service | What it opens up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crete | |||
| Crete | Heraklion (HER), Chania (CHQ), Sitia (JSH) | International in season; Sitia is domestic | A start or end point for almost any route |
| Cyclades | |||
| Santorini | Santorini (JTR) | International in season | The south end of the Cyclades corridor |
| Mykonos | Mykonos (JMK) | International in season | The north end of it, and the way to Tinos |
| Naxos | Naxos (JNX) | Domestic from Athens | A mid-corridor exit, and the way to Amorgos |
| Paros | Paros (PAS) | Domestic from Athens | Ferries in every direction from Parikia |
| Milos | Milos (MLO) | Domestic from Athens | The western Cyclades, and the way to Folegandros |
| Syros | Syros (JSY) | Domestic from Athens | The ferry crossroads of the group |
| Dodecanese | |||
| Rhodes | Rhodes (RHO) | International in season | The south end of the chain, and the way to Symi |
| Kos | Kos (KGS) | International in season | The middle of the chain, and the way to Patmos |
| Karpathos | Karpathos (AOK) | Domestic from Athens | The gap between Rhodes and Crete |
| Kalymnos | Kalymnos (JKL) | Domestic from Athens | A small airport on the Athens network |
| Leros | Leros (LRS) | Domestic from Athens | The other runway near Patmos |
| Astypalaia | Astypalaia (JTY) | Domestic from Athens | The western outlier of the group |
| Kasos | Kasos (KSJ) | Domestic from Athens | The last island before Crete |
| Kastelorizo | Kastelorizo (KZS) | Domestic from Athens | The easternmost point of Greece |
| Ionian | |||
| Corfu | Corfu (CFU) | International in season | The north end of the Ionian, and the way to Paxos |
| Kefalonia | Kefalonia (EFL) | International in season | The middle Ionian, and the way to Ithaca |
| Zakynthos | Zakynthos (ZTH) | International in season | The south end of the Ionian |
| North Aegean | |||
| Lesbos | Mytilene (MJT) | International in season | The largest island of the group |
| Samos | Samos (SMI) | International in season | Ferries on to Patmos and Ikaria |
| Chios | Chios (JKH) | Domestic from Athens | The link between Lesbos and Samos |
| Ikaria | Ikaria (JIK) | Domestic from Athens | Between Samos and the eastern Cyclades |
| Lemnos | Lemnos (LXS) | Domestic from Athens | The far north of the Aegean |
| Sporades and elsewhere | |||
| Skiathos | Skiathos (JSI) | International in season | The Sporades gateway, and the way to Skopelos |
| Skyros | Skyros (SKU) | Domestic from Athens | The outlying Sporades island |
| Kythira | Kythira (KIT) | Domestic from Athens | Off the southern tip of the Peloponnese |
The title on the sign is not the service on the day, and that trips up almost everyone. Mykonos, Santorini, Naxos, Paros, Milos and Syros are all formally national airports, and two of them handle heavy international traffic every summer. Lemnos carries an international designation. Several of the smaller airports pick up a seasonal route or a charter in high summer. Read the airport’s own published route list for the month you are flying, not the word on the terminal.
The list is built from the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority’s register of airport operators and from Fraport Greece, which operates 14 of these airports under concession. Checked 13 July 2026.
An airport is not a flight: the three tests before you build a route on one
A runway tells you a plane can land. It does not tell you a plane you can use will.
Three tests, and they apply to any island airport on the list:
- Is there a flight from where you are coming from? Nearly every one of these airports connects to Athens. Direct service from another country is concentrated in the dozen biggest, and for the rest the way in is a domestic hop.
- Does it fly in your month? Much of the international service into the Greek islands is seasonal. It appears in spring and thins out in autumn, which is why an island can look well connected in an August search and be an Athens-only airport in March. When the season actually starts and ends decides more of this than the airport does.
- Is it frequent enough to survive a problem? A route flown a few times a week on a small aircraft has no next flight when yours is full or cancelled. That is a routing risk, not an inconvenience.
Then there is the shape of the network itself. Greek domestic aviation runs through Athens, with a small number of inter-island exceptions . Flying from one island to another usually means flying back through the capital, so for most island-to-island moves the boat is the direct route and the plane is the detour.
None of this is worth guessing at. Check the airport’s route list, or the airline’s, for the month you are travelling. The airlines, the connections and the booking sit on the flying to Greece guide.
What an airport island is really for: starting and ending a trip
Fly into one island and home from another and the return leg disappears. That is the whole argument for caring which islands have runways, and the booking has a name: an open jaw. The Greek shape of it is always the same. Land at one end of a ferry corridor, sail through the middle, fly home from the other end.
Four routes that work only because both ends have a runway:
- Into Santorini, north through the Cyclades, home from Mykonos.
- Into Crete at Heraklion or Chania, north to Santorini, home from Santorini or Mykonos.
- Into Rhodes, north through the Dodecanese, home from Kos.
- Into Corfu, south through the Ionian, home from Kefalonia or Zakynthos.
You book it as a multi-city itinerary instead of a return, which airlines and booking sites handle as a matter of course. What it saves is not a fare, it is a leg: an entire return ferry journey, and usually the night that went with it. Price it against a round trip and decide for yourself; the argument here is about time. Which pairs of airports are worth using is a question about the middle, and how the ferry corridors connect answers it. Island hopping, end to end covers building that middle properly.
The counterweight is real. A there-and-back trip through one airport is simpler, and if your islands sit on one corridor with a single obvious gateway, an open jaw adds complexity and gives nothing back. It is a tool, not a rule.
One line matters more than the others. End your trip on an island with an airport and you have a second, independent way home if the sea closes. End it on an island without one and a cancelled ferry is the only thing standing between you and your flight. What happens when the boat is cancelled is worth reading before you fix that last leg, and the routes already built this way show the shapes in full.
The islands with no airport, and the gateway that gets you there
An island without a runway is not unreachable. It is downstream. It has a gateway, usually an airport island a short sail away, and knowing the pairing is the whole answer.
| Island | Its gateway | What that means for your route |
|---|---|---|
| Hydra | Athens, by sea from Piraeus | No cars, no airport, and close enough to the capital to be a last stop |
| Tinos | Mykonos | A short hop from a runway; the easiest airport-free island to add |
| Symi | Rhodes | You arrive and leave through Rhodes, both ways |
| Folegandros | Santorini or Milos | A ferry leg at each end; budget the days for it |
| Amorgos | Naxos | The far edge of the Cyclades; add days, not hours |
| Patmos | Kos or Leros | Two possible runways, which is unusual and useful |
| Ios | Santorini or Naxos | Sits between two airports on the main corridor |
| Andros | Rafina, on the mainland | Nearer to Athens by road than the map suggests |
| Kea | Lavrio, on the mainland | Reached by road from Athens, then a short crossing |
| Paxos | Corfu | One corridor in, the same corridor out |
| Ithaca | Kefalonia | A short crossing from a runway |
| Delos | Mykonos | A day trip; there is nowhere to stay |
Two islands break the pattern, and no list prints them.
Lefkada has no airport and does not need one. It is joined to the mainland by road, across the floating bridge at Agia Mavra, so you fly into Aktion (PVK) near Preveza and drive over. It is the one Ionian island you reach without a boat, and that changes the shape of an Ionian trip completely.
Evia is joined to the mainland by bridge at Chalkida. No airport, no ferry, just the road out of Athens.
The rule that falls out of the table: an airport-free island costs you a ferry leg at each end, so it belongs in the middle of a route and not at the end of one. Put it last and your flight home depends on a boat.
Four things that catch people out at an island airport
The aircraft is small, and so is the allowance. The domestic island routes are flown by small aircraft, and the baggage allowance on that leg is not the one that carried you across an ocean. Check it when you book the hop rather than at the desk on the day. What to pack becomes a different problem when the second flight has the smaller hold.
The connection through Athens is a real connection. A domestic hop is a separate flight with its own check-in, its own queue and its own way of going wrong. Leave genuine time between an international arrival and an island departure. If the two are on separate tickets, nobody owes you the second flight when the first one lands late. Minimum connection times belong to the airline and the airport, not to us; the flights and connections guide is where that decision lives.
The terminal is one room, and it jams. The famous island airports handle a summer peak that is a multiple of their winter traffic, through buildings sized closer to the winter. A security queue on an August afternoon is not the queue in the photograph. Arrive early and schedule nothing tight on the far side of it.
The airport may not be on your island. Aktion serves Lefkada from the mainland. Rhodes serves Symi. Kos or Leros serves Patmos. When your island’s nearest airport sits on another island, you have a ferry leg on arrival day and another on departure day, with every failure condition any ferry leg has. Getting from the airport to the port is the leg people forget to plan, and a cancelled boat on the morning you fly is why it deserves the attention.
Choose the two ends first
Pick the airport island you fly into. Pick the airport island you fly home from. Fill the middle with the islands that have no runway.
That order produces a route that works. The reverse order, islands first and flights afterwards, produces the trip that ends with a ferry to the airport on the last morning and nothing behind it if the boat does not sail.
From here, the routes that already do this show the shapes end to end, and the map of the islands shows which runways sit at which end of which corridor.
Last checked 13 July 2026. What gets re-checked: the island list against the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority’s register of airport operators, and the Fraport Greece concession list. Service levels and seasons are not ours to publish. They belong to the airline and the airport, and they change every year. How we check and date our facts explains the rest.
Frequently asked questions
How many Greek islands have an airport?
Twenty-six Greek islands have an airport, served by 28 airports, because Crete has three: Heraklion, Chania and Sitia. That is a count off the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority’s register of airport operators, taken on 13 July 2026. Only about a dozen take direct international flights, and much of that service runs in season only.
Can you fly directly to the Greek islands from another country?
To the bigger island airports, yes, and mostly in season: Crete, Rhodes, Corfu, Kos, Santorini, Mykonos, Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Skiathos, Samos and Lesbos. For the smaller islands the usual answer is a connection through Athens. Test any airport three ways: does it fly from your city, does it fly in your month, and does it fly often enough to absorb a cancellation. The flying to Greece guide covers the carriers and the connections.
Can I fly into one Greek island and home from another?
Yes, and it is the reason the airport list matters at all. An open-jaw booking deletes the return ferry leg and usually a night with it. The classic shape is into Santorini, north through the Cyclades, home from Mykonos. It costs you a multi-city booking instead of a return, and what it saves is time rather than a guaranteed fare. The routes built this way show it worked through.
Does Milos have an airport?
Yes. Milos has a small national airport with domestic flights from Athens. The qualifier is the useful part: it is not an island most people fly into from another country, and the ferry is how the majority arrive. Treat the runway as a way out at the end of a Cyclades route rather than a way in from abroad.
Which Greek islands have no airport?
Many of the best-known small islands have no runway, including Hydra, Symi, Folegandros, Amorgos, Ios, Tinos, Andros, Kea, Patmos, Paxos and Ithaca. None of them appears in the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority’s register of airport operators. Each is reached by ferry from a gateway: Tinos from Mykonos, Symi from Rhodes, Patmos from Kos or Leros, Folegandros from Santorini or Milos, Paxos from Corfu, Ithaca from Kefalonia, Hydra from Athens. An island with no airport belongs in the middle of a route, not at the end of it.
Does Lefkada have an airport?
No, and it does not need one. Lefkada is joined to the mainland by road, over the floating bridge at Agia Mavra, so the airport that serves it is Aktion (PVK) near Preveza and you drive across. It is the one Ionian island you reach without a boat, which changes how an Ionian trip is built: you can land and drive, rather than land and sail.
Is it better to fly or take the ferry between the Greek islands?
Usually the ferry, because of how the network is shaped. Greek domestic aviation runs through Athens, so flying from one island to another generally means flying back through the capital. For most island-to-island moves the boat is the direct route and the plane is the detour. The exception is the long diagonal: Crete to Rhodes, or the Ionian across to the Aegean, where a flight through Athens genuinely wins. The ferry network guide has the corridors.
Should my trip end on an island with an airport?
If you can, yes. An airport island gives you a second, independent way home when the sea closes, and a cancelled ferry on the day you fly is the worst thing that happens to a Greek trip. If your last island has no runway, put a buffer night between the final ferry and the flight, in Athens or at the airport island you fly from. When a ferry is cancelled covers what you are owed and what you are not.