Symi Travel News

While many places are lucky enough to have direct flights to Rhodes, many more do not, or the flights are on unsuitable days or dates, or even just too expensive. The alternative is usually to fly to Athens or Thessaloniki and connect onto Greek domestic flights operated by Aegean or Olympic Air. The international airline summer timetable period begins on 26 March and below is the summer timetable between Athens and Rhodes and Thessaloniki and Rhodes. I’ll cover which airports have flights to Athens or Thessaloniki in later blog posts. Aegean and Olympic code share on each others flights on these routes, meaning that you can buy through tickets from say London or Amsterdam with one of the two, and complete your journey to Rhodes on the other if that’s the best connection.

Connecting flights from Athens and Thessaloniki to Rhodes. summer 2012

NonStop or Direct to Rhodes from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden – 2012 version 1
Non Stop to Rhodes from Belgium and Luxembourg 2012 version 1
NonStop or Direct to Rhodes from the Netherlands 2012 – version 1
NonStop to Rhodes from the UK 2012 – Version 6
NonStop to Rhodes from Germany 2012 – Version 2
NonStop to Rhodes from Switzerland 2012, version 1
NonStop or Direct to Rhodes from Austria 2012, version 1

Malev

This was the Hungarian national carrier, based in Budapest, which ceased flying last night. There’s a possibility it may reappear in a slimmed down form.

Malev operated daily flights between Budapest and Athens (and connecting flights to many major European centres)  and had announced a summer Budapest-Rhodes service.

And as promised the 2012 summer flight details are coming through thick and fast now.

Here is the flight schedule for flights to Rhodes from Scandanavia and Finland. Some of the Swedish flights are clearly planned to serve two airports in Sweden but the airline or tour operator websites don’t make it clear which!

NonStop or Direct flights from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden to Rhodes – Summer 2012 version 1

Non Stop to Rhodes from Belgium and Luxembourg 2012 version 1
NonStop or Direct to Rhodes from the Netherlands 2012 – version 1
NonStop to Rhodes from the UK 2012 – Version 6
NonStop to Rhodes from Germany 2012 – Version 2
NonStop to Rhodes from Switzerland 2012, version 1
NonStop or Direct to Rhodes from Austria 2012, version 1

And here we have direct flights to Rhodes from Belgium and from Luxembourg for summer 2012.
Non Stop to Rhodes from Belgium and Luxembourg 2012 version 1
NonStop or Direct to Rhodes from the Netherlands 2012 – version 1
NonStop to Rhodes from the UK 2012 – Version 6
NonStop to Rhodes from Germany 2012 – Version 2
NonStop to Rhodes from Switzerland 2012, version 1
NonStop or Direct to Rhodes from Austria 2012, version 1

At the beginning of the month Cirrus Airlines of Germany closed down, and last night the much larger(20 plus planes)  Barcelona-based Spanish airline Spanair ceased trading, leaving a large number of people stranded across Europe. These were both scheduled carriers, and Spanair planes have served Greece in the past. Luckily these services have been operated by Iberia and Aegean for the last year or so and so travellers to or from Symi are unlikely to be seriously affected, unless they were connecting in Barcelona or Madrid with Spanair flights.