GERMANY: Germania To Add More Flights To Greece In 2018

German carrier Germania has revised its flight program for summer 2018 and will operate more frequent flights from Dusseldorf to Greece.

The new destinations include the Greek islands of Crete, Karpathos, Kos, Lesvos, Rhodes and Zakynthos. Additionally, the number of connections to the island of Samos will be increased to two per week.

In 2018 Germania will also operate a new twice weekly service from Dresden to Athens. Moreover, in 2018 the airline will launch flights from Germany to Thessaloniki and Corfu.

Germania already operates seasonal direct flights from the German cities of Bremen and Nuremberg to Athens and also offers service to select Greek islands through a codeshare agreement with Greek airline Sky Express.

Top Kinissis Hellas is the General Sales Agent (GSA) of Germania in Greece.

New flights to Canary Islands and Portugal

Germania also announced that in 2018 it will fly to the Canary Islands of Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma and Tenerife. Also new to the airline’s schedule are the Portuguese destinations Faro on the Atlantic coast and Ponta Delgada at the Azores.

Also, in 2018 two flights a week twill continue to take off from Germany to Paphos in Cyprus.

Germania’s 2018 winter schedule also includes four flights a week for Tel Aviv.

In efforts to meet demand from the Turkish community in Germany, Germania offers an extensive choice of flights to Turkey.

The destination airports include Edremit, Alanya/Gazipasa, Hatay and Zonguldak. A new addition is Kütahya/Zafer, while the flights to Malatya are being increased.



Tourism Observer

GREECE: Creation Of Videos For Targeted Promotion Of Tourism

Alternate Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura in an interview with Praktorio 104.9 FM on Friday spoke of the coordinated efforts made to improve the climate on the islands that received the largest number of refugees and expressed her satisfaction over the latest data.

Kountoura underlined that the refugee issue is a European one and stressed that Greece has done its best on its part. "We hosted refugees temporarily in places fully controlled and away from tourist areas" and "we are proud because we sent messages of humanity and solidarity while at the same time we stood up to the challenge," she said.

The minister also noted that there was concern over the islands that received the largest number of refugees "because the refugee flows on these islands did not leave much room for supporting them," but she added that when the flows were reduced "we managed to change the climate so that the islands have the fewer possible losses."

Kountoura also referred to the programme of Samos, Lesvos, Chios, Kos and Leros, the islands most affected by the refugee crisis last year, to slash prices for rooms and tourist packages by up to 50 percent for Greek tourists who will visit from August 20 until the end of October, in a bid to reverse a large drop in tourism arrivals on these islands.

She also talked about the cooperation with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency and the creation of videos for the targeted promotion of tourism product abroad.