After a terrible week I have decided that nothing better than a nice ride on my airliner.
Left LCLK TO LGST (Sitia) early morning and after a long flight with 30 plus headwind, got cleared to RWY 22 with 180@15G25, with a gust very effective.
After a short refuel, a very warm welcome (not like Portoroz but nice anyway with smiling people) and less than 20 I was on a taxi for a nice lunch and walk around the city.
Back to the airport, again an excellent service, full of good mood and laughing, and 51 euros later I was back to Larnaka ‘this time blessed’ by the same wind, on opposite direction.
The bad news, they all talk that Fraport will also take over Sitia. Will be back for sure before the nightmare.
Fraport taking over Sitia would be another nail in the coffin.
It begs the question of who (which country) runs Greece now?
Sitia is nowhere near making money and probably never will have enough tourist traffic to make it worth fraport stripping it. After all, they don’t own Iraklion, which does have a lot of traffic.
Otherwise, a great report and thanks for posting it 
I shouldn’t admit this, but I’ll pay 500 EUR if that’s what is costs to tie down my plane on a Fraport owned Greek island. I don’t think it will come to that though. The Greeks will allow a competitor island to emerge. Syros? I do hope Sitia remains unoccupied.
Without AOPA Greece I reckon Greece would have been off the GA map already many years ago.
But yes, it is a problem that European GA is so divided and often uninterested. At the same time, I reckon in a state like Greece it would be difficult to actually take Fraport to court over unfair business practice or abuse of power but if someone could do that, it would be a well financed AOPA.
As it stands, the Greek government appears to turn a blind eye to this. The question in my mind is whether there is a legal way to force Fraport to go back to normal charges in the way that they must run those airports under a license from the Greek government, specifying that they have to serve all kinds of traffic, otherwise they would shut out GA simply by saying only scheduled services and passenger ops of 50+. Apparently they can’t do that so there must be a provision in their contracts which makes them accept all traffic, however it does not prevent outpricing.
As there are no alternative airfields around in Greece where GA can escape to, it really means that the 14 privatized airports are off the map for GA untill something happens. For us, there is no other way than to take our business elsewhere, where we are appreciated. Personally I think this should not only apply to not flying there by GA but to boycott those airports also as passengers for personal travel.
As I have written before, I am certain that Greece was told by its creditors (Germany and France principally) that unless they sell off their assets to companies based at the creditors’ countries, they won’t get loan rescheduling etc. That is how politics is done. In the “good old days” you just parked some gunboats offshore
In more pleasant times, Greece would have been “suggested” that they “should consider” purchasing a ton of hardware e.g. submarines, trains, etc. Actually that was easier since the said manufacturers bribed half the Greek ruling apparatus (google on Siemens bribery etc and you will have vastly more reading than you can deal with) 
I don’t actually believe that Greece is incapable of building an airport terminal, etc. They could also contract out the job to a non Greek company but what Fraport were allowed to do is daylight robbery, and the money skimmed off is not going to Greece.
Another factor is that the crisis in Turkey etc is feeding a lot of tourism to Greece and they probably wanted to capitalise on that while they can. And Fraport probably did get the bodies moving faster through the airports, some of which ranked in the top ten of the world’s worst airports.
Mooney, unfortunately in my case easy to say than do, I am limited by range to stop in Greece wherever I go, with good winds I might reach Skopje, next place to refuel. Avoiding Samos, costs me one hour and consequent fuel by using Sitia. There is a safety issue involved, extending the limits to fly with gases on tanks to avoid be robbed.
Peter, Turkey tourism was distributed to several places, we even got a share of it in Portugal. According to the conversation I had in Sitia, during the peak, in addition they receive an average of 4 charters per week. Had that to the daily operations, likely a flight or 3 per day, and there is enough room to accommodate GA on suitable prices.
Everybody is trying to steal from you, not only Fraport, I posted the quarrel I had with customs in Samos when they tried to get money from a service not provided, legally I didn’t cross a border, it was a technical stop. Imagine what, I didn’t pay customs yesterday in Sitia, and I went for a nice lunch in the city.
There is another tread on AOPA, but my point is, the same way AOPA EU intervened on the Portuguese case, it should also do it on Greek case, regarding the points of entry and safety concerns by increasing the risk acceptance on fuel management, since they cannot interfere on business options. That way, technical stops would probably be considered differently. One would say, if you don’t have money you shouldn’t fly ….. really! When one can notice how some airlines manage fuel and need to declare emergency.
In my case, will I be willing to risk arriving Skopje with only 45 minutes in the tanks for not paying 300 euros in Samos on a 3 Euros/liter of AvGas?
Of course Sitia can accommodate GA. I have been there many times. They get maybe several passenger flights per day, at most.
But one could say the same for almost every airport in Europe, or the world. Very few have arrivals every few mins, solidly.
It is a political / organisational / empire building / incompetence issue.
Sure “we” can pay €300 at LGSM after having spent 2x that on fuel getting there, but it is one thing robbing somebody, and another robbing somebody in a way which makes it so obvious and so evidently satisfying to the robber
My first visit to LGST, 2004, was totally free Then a few more were charged at some tens of €. IMHO anybody would happily pay €50. But the €300+slots crap at LGSM etc is just a robbery, initiated by Fraport and enhanced by the locals who behave like looters after somebody smashed the windows of a supermarket.
As I said I would be surprised if Fraport take over LGST because they are interested only in skimming the revenue stream and sending the cash back home, and there isn’t much traffic and more importantly there isn’t much potential for much tourism. Anybody who has visited that part of Crete will have seen that while it is really nice, there is very little going on, and even for self contained tourism where people just live in the hotel and don’t come out, there are too few hotels which could absorb a load of inbounds. The travel between Sitia and the rest of Crete is a very slow road – e.g. 3hrs to Iraklion. Near Sitia is a huge estate which was built many years ago and which is ~95% unsold – this proves that the area is economically a no-go. It does make one wonder why LGST spent tens of millions on that crazy passenger terminal – possibly the result of more bribery? I wonder which company built it.
As @petakas wrote few times, there’s still LGAV which is, as technical stop, cheaper than Fraport airports. And LGIO will have fuel and it’s port of entry. However, the problem of Fraport airports still remains, because at these prices it simply doesn’t make sense to use them as destination airports. For €400+ you can get tickets for all family on CAT and for what you don’t spend on fuel, you pay food and accommodation for a week. For me, visiting Athens and Crete still can be done in cheaper way – flying to LGAV or LGIO as port of entries and then park at LGMG (for Athens) and LGST or LGIR (for Crete).
Of course, it’s not the end of the world – there are so many beautiful destinations in Europe where GA is welcome, so we can choose any of these. Local GA will suffer the most while the airports will not notice missed profits from us at all – it’s so tiny fraction in big picture of tourists coming to Greek islands that it’s not even worth of mentioning. The type of GA, which still will be welcome, are bizjets and they simply won’t question pricing.
If you put me choose between the Soviet arrogance of the old regime vs the New abuses,I wouldnt be able to.The plain fact is that for 25 years I was sickened each time I had to drive to the airport(s).I was well informed about the New regimes appetite and obliged to get rid of my fetich on time.
There is a growing sensation that the New regime is very closely interpolated to mass tourism giants,so the only vision they have is to exploit the islands until further notice and then just depart,leaving back dried aquifiers,trash mountains,abandoned hotels and thousands of “immigrands” working in their “All Inclusive” kitchens.
Only hellos and seagulls fly the country and nobody cares for the vices of the few.
