Sitia Airport is a small community airport in the region Mponta of Sitia Municipality, on the eastern part of

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

. The facility is serving the city of

Sitia Sitia ( el, Σητεία) is a port town and a municipality in Lasithi, Crete, Greece. The town has 9,912 inhabitants (2011) and the municipality has 18,318 (2011). It lies east of Agios Nikolaos and northeast of Ierapetra. Sitia port is on the ...

. The airport is located 1 km north/northwest of the city center.

History

Sitia Airport began operations on 7 June 1984 when the first aircraft landed on the facility. This was an

Olympic Airways Olympic Airlines ( el, Ολυμπιακές Αερογραμμές, ''Olympiakés Aerogrammés'' – OA), formerly named Olympic Airways for at least four decades, was the flag carrier airline of Greece. The airline's head office was located ...

' Dornier Do-228, registration SX-BHF. This was a test flight, to test the airport and its handling facilities. The airport was officially opened 2 days later, on 9 June 1984. Its official name became Δημοτικός Αερολιμένας Σητείας, literally Municipal Airport of Sitia. At 10:30 the same day, the first official flight, OAL 7001, arrived. On 13 June, the first flight from

Rhodes Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the S ...

arrived, followed by a flight from the neighbouring island

Karpathos Karpathos ( el, Κάρπαθος, ), also Carpathos, is the second largest of the Greek Dodecanese islands, in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Together with the neighboring smaller Saria Island it forms the municipality of Karpathos, which is part o ...

the next day. On 20 May 1993, the airport's services moved to a newly built terminal building and control tower. The new installations cover an area of 550 m². A new runway, oriented 05/23 and with a length of 2,074 meters was completed in May 2003. Also, 3 new taxiways and 2 new aircraft stands have been constructed. Additionally, the old terminal building has been replaced by a temporary building, covering an area of 1,000 m².greek-airports.gr Airport History
/ref> On 13 January 13, 2016, the airport's services moved to a new terminal building. The new building has an area of 7,500 m².

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Sitia Airport:

Statistics

Annual Passenger Throughput * Period: Jan - Jun

Ground transportation

By car the airport can be reached via the main road along the North coast. From Aghios Nikolaos, heading west, the main road transforms into the National Road of Crete. The City of Sitia is just a few minutes drive away from the airport. Besides rental cars, there are taxis available to any destination on Crete. There are no bus connections available from the airport.

References

External links