Why you don't want to fly into Athens on the same day as your connecting International Flight!
Yes, it's great to extend your vacation and spend as much time as possible on a Greek Island, hopping on the flight to Athens a few hours before your interanational flight and settling in for the long journey home. Under ideal conditions, this would be the way to do it, but many times the conditions in Greece aren't ideal as outlined in the news story below written on May 21, 2007.
Any events, from stormy weather to a malfunctioning aircraft could cause a delay to your flight to Athens, thus laying to the wayside your best layed plans. Missing an international flight is no laughing matter. If you have separate tickets for your different flights, neither airline is responsible for a missed flight. This means that they are not obligated to get you home(but they will try). On top of that you will incurr more expenses- transportation to and from the airport, hotel rooms, meals and personal expenses for your extended stay and possibly additional charges to cover various fees for your new tickets.
In the high season it's possible to spend 2-3 days or more waiting for an available flight. If you MUST be home by a certain date, you may just be plain out of luck! My sister missed a flight and ended up spending 3 days in Madrid waiting for another available flight! Luckily hers was caused by a missed flight on the same ticket so she was protected..... if she hadn't been, it would have been a huge layout of cash(but more like a credit card charge) that she didn't have...
So..... If you have a flight connecting you from the islands to Athens to your flight home, be prudent, stay in Athens one or two days at the end of your trip. If you're planning on staying in Athens anyway, it's better to plan the time in Athens at the end of your trip, not the beginning......since it's a more efficient use of your time to spend days in Athens only once!
Stormy weather hits Greece
Violent storms throughout Saturday disrupted air and sea transport around Greece and obliged the fire service to pump water out of basements but did not result in any injuries.
A German charter flight that was carrying 244 passengers was forced to make an emergency landing at Athens International Airport after being struck by lightning. The aircraft had taken off from Hania, Crete. Two Olympic Airlines flights to Rhodes and Chios were forced to return to Athens because of the stormy weather over the Aegean.
Two cruise ships anchored in port on the island of Rhodes were slightly damaged when the mooring ropes of the Oceanic II snapped and the vessel struck the Rhapsody. A private catamaran also sank in the Mandraki area of the island but nobody was on board.
The fire service had to pump water from more than a dozen basements in Piraeus on Saturday after heavy rain in Attica. Firemen also evacuated a hotel on Tinos as the building’s basement had flooded.