Chania International Airport

Chania International Airport "Daskalogiannis" (IATA: CHQ, ICAO: LGSA) is an international airport located near Souda Bay on the Akrotiri peninsula of the Greek island of Crete, serving the city of Chania, 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) away. It is a gateway to western Crete for an increasing number of tourists. The airport is named after Daskalogiannis, a Cretan rebel against Ottoman rule in the 18th century, and is a joint civil–military airport. It is the sixth-busiest airport in Greece.

Chania International Airport "Daskalogiannis" Κρατικός Αερολιμένας Χανίων, "Δασκαλογιάννης"
IATA: CHQ ICAO: LGSA
Summary
Airport type	Public/military
Owner	Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority
Operator	Fraport Greece
Serves	Chania, Crete
Focus city for	Aegean Airlines Ryanair
Elevation AMSL	149 m / 490 ft
Coordinates	35°31′54″N 024°08′59″E
Website	chq-airport.gr
Map
CHQ Location in Greece
Runways
Direction Length Surface m ft 11/29 3,347 10,982 Asphalt
Statistics (2023)
Passengers 3,648,416 Passenger traffic change 10.9% Aircraft movements 24,678 Aircraft movements change 6.0%
Source: Fraport-Greece[1]

History

Aerial view

Terminal interior

The focus on civil aviation for the west of Crete has not always been on the current location. It was the airport of Maleme that served civil flights up to 1959, and dating back to the end of Second World War.^{[citation needed]}

In 1959, this activity was transferred to the military airport of Souda. 1967 saw the construction of the first passenger terminal and parking space for two aircraft. ^{[citation needed]} In 1974, the airport also began to serve international flights. Because of insufficient capacity, there was the need for a new terminal building. Eventually, in 1996, the new terminal was ready, measuring a surface area of 14,650 square metres (157,700 sq ft), with 6 aircraft stands in front. It has a design capacity of 1.35 million passengers per year. In 2000, it was officially named Ioannis Daskalogiannis.

The airport is also intensively used as a military airfield by the Hellenic Air Force.^[2][3]

In December 2015, the privatisation of Chania International Airport and 13 other regional airports of Greece was finalised with the signing of the agreement between the Fraport AG/Copelouzos Group joint venture and the state privatisation fund.^[4] According to the agreement, the joint venture will operate the 14 airports (including Chania International Airport) for 40 years as of 11 April 2017.

In June 2018^[5] Fraport Greece completed the new aircraft layouts, which are now using push back to double the parking space. The passenger safety area has been expanded, the number of hand baggage scanners from 5 to 8, the duty-free store space trebled from 400 sq.m. to 1,200 sq. meters, the VIP space moved to increase the number of boarding gates from 14 to 16 and the dividing walls in the departure halls were removed in order to create a space of 3,000 sq. meters. A new sewage pumping station was built, and the network (approximately 3.5 km) was connected to the municipal network. Electromechanical installations, including new motor control centres (MCCs), wiring, lighting, and electrical panels, were optimized. The apron lighting was upgraded, and the water closets (WCs) were renovated to increase the number of toilets in the non-Schengen area. Additionally, the escalator was relocated to better utilize the available space.^[6]

On June 10, 2018, Air Force One carrying U.S. President Donald Trump stopped for refuelling in Chania during Trump's flight from the G7 meeting in Quebec to the meeting in Singapore with the leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un.^[7]

Fraport Greece's investment plan

On 22 March 2017, Fraport Greece presented its master plan for the 14 Greek regional airports, including Chania International Airport.^[8]

Immediate actions that will be implemented at the airports as soon as Fraport Greece takes over operations, before the summer of 2019:

• General clean-up
• Improving lighting, marking of airside areas
• Upgrading sanitary facilities
• Enhancing services and offering a new free Internet connection (WiFi)
• Implementing works to improve fire safety in all the areas of the airports
• Rearranging the terminal's internal utilization
• Rearranging the departure gate lounge
• Expanding the security control area
• HBS (Hold Baggage Screening Systems) inline screening
• Expanding the waste water treatment plant or connection to municipal service
• Reorganizing the apron area
• Refurbishing the airside pavement
• 25 percent increase in the number of departure gates (from 8 to 10)
• Doubling the number of security-check lanes (from 4 to 8)

Airlines and destinations

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

Airlines	Destinations
Aegean Airlines	Athens,[9] Thessaloniki[10] Seasonal: Rhodes (begins 14 April 2025),[11] Tel Aviv[12]
Air Serbia	Seasonal: Belgrade[13]
Animawings	Seasonal: Bucharest–Otopeni[14]
Austrian Airlines	Seasonal: Vienna
British Airways	Seasonal: London–Heathrow[15]
Braathens International Airways	Seasonal charter: Gothenburg[16]
Brussels Airlines	Seasonal: Brussels[17]
Condor	Seasonal: Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg (resumes 3 May 2025),[18] Leipzig/Halle,[19] Munich
Discover Airlines	Seasonal: Frankfurt, Munich
easyJet	Seasonal: Amsterdam[20] Basel/Mulhouse[21] Berlin, Bristol,[22] Glasgow, London–Gatwick, London–Luton, Lyon, Manchester, Milan–Malpensa, Nice
Edelweiss Air	Seasonal: Zurich
Eurowings	Seasonal: Düsseldorf, Graz,[23] Hamburg,[24] Stuttgart
Finnair	Seasonal: Helsinki[25]
Israir Airlines	Seasonal: Tel Aviv[26]
Jet2.com	Seasonal: Birmingham, Bristol,[27] Leeds/Bradford, London–Stansted, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne[28]
Lufthansa	Seasonal: Frankfurt
Luxair	Seasonal: Luxembourg[29]
Marabu[30]	Seasonal: Hamburg, Munich
Norwegian Air Shuttle	Seasonal: Bergen, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Stockholm–Arlanda
Ryanair	Paphos, Thessaloniki Seasonal: Athens,[31] Bergamo, Berlin, Birmingham,[32] Bologna,[33] Bucharest–Otopeni, Budapest, Charleroi, Dublin, East Midlands, Gdańsk, Hahn, Kraków, Leeds/Bradford, London–Stansted, Malta, Manchester, Marseille, Memmingen, Naples, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nuremberg,[34] Pisa,[35] Poznań, Rome–Fiumicino, Sofia, Stockholm–Arlanda, Tel Aviv, Treviso, Vienna,[36] Warsaw–Modlin, Weeze, Wrocław
Scandinavian Airlines	Seasonal: Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm–Arlanda Seasonal charter:[citation needed] Aalborg,[37] Bergen, Bodø, Haugesund, Kristiansand, Gothenburg, Stavanger, Tromsø, Trondheim
Sky Express	Athens
Smartwings	Seasonal: Bratislava (begins 12 May 2025), Prague Seasonal charter: Debrecen[38]
Sunclass Airlines[citation needed]	Seasonal charter: Billund, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Helsinki, Malmö, Oslo, Stavanger, Stockholm–Arlanda, Trondheim
Transavia	Seasonal: Amsterdam, Paris–Orly
TUI Airways	Seasonal: Birmingham, London–Gatwick, Manchester
TUI fly Belgium	Seasonal: Brussels, Ostend/Bruges
TUI fly Netherlands[39]	Seasonal: Amsterdam
TUI fly Nordic	Seasonal charter: Copenhagen, Gothenburg,[40] Norrköping,[41] Oslo,[42] Stockholm–Arlanda
Tus Airways	Seasonal: Larnaca[43]
Wizz Air	Seasonal: Budapest, Cluj-Napoca, Vienna, Warsaw–Chopin

Traffic figures

Annual passenger traffic at CHQ airport. See Wikidata query.

The data are from Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)^[44] until 2016, and from 2017 and later from the official website of the airport.^[45]

Year Passengers Domestic International Total 1994 204,360 621,986 826,346 1995 220,910 669,516 890,426 1996 244,146 587,106 831,252 1997 301,471 622,689 924,160 1998 292,504 676,687 969,191 1999 414,429 816,045 1,230,474 2000 515,093 901,710 1,416,803 2001 395,864 1,033,118 1,428,982 2002 331,521 1,053,058 1,384,579 2003 413,541 1,066,112 1,479,653 2004 382,224 1,064,153 1,446,377 2005 401,141 1,111,628 1,512,769 2006 437,403 1,323,556 1,760,959 2007 514,318 1,368,516 1,882,834 2008 522,658 1,343,923 1,866,581 2009 575,687 1,219,779 1,795,466 2010 468,279 1,186,585 1,654,864 2011 449,211 1,325,497 1,774,708 2012 397,661 1,435,313 1,832,974 2013 379,280 1,699,577 2,078,857 2014 578,286 1,869,280 2,447,566 2015 827,190 1,875,093 2,702,283 2016 881,031 2,085,666 2,966,697 2017 831,324 2,111,085 3,042,409 2018 646,723 2,361,964 3,008,687 2019 672,945 2,310,597 2,983,542 2020 295.385 408.097 703.482 2021 454,298 1,340,938 1,795,236 2022 678,845 2,611,957 3,290,802 2023 828,793 2,819,623 3,648,416 2024(Sep) 680.900 2.714.033 3.394.933

Traffic statistics by country (2023)

Traffic by country at Chania International Airport – 2023

Place	Country	Total pax
1	Greece	828.793
2	United Kingdom	482.708
3	Denmark	315.619
4	Germany	312.716
5	Norway	277.276
6	Poland	257.793
7	Sweden	242.900
8	Finland	205.623
9	Italy	110.399
10	France	83.004
11	Belgium	71.690
12	Austria	68.582
13	Romania	65.210
14	Cyprus	61.049
15	Hungary	48.053

Source:^[46]

Transportation to and from the airport

The airport can be easily reached by car, bus or taxi via the main road network.

See also

• List of airports in Crete
• List of the busiest airports in Greece
• Transport in Greece

References

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2. "History of Maleme - Maleme Airfield - German War Cemetery at Maleme". explorecrete.com. 13 November 2014. Archived from the original on 26 March 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
3. "Greek Airports Guide". Archived from the original on 30 May 2012. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
4. "Greece signs privatization of 14 regional airports with Germany's Fraport - TornosNews.gr". Tornosnews.gr. Archived from the original on 3 August 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
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6. "Chania Airport "I. Daskalogiannis"". Greece Airports. Archived from the original on 23 September 2024. Retrieved 23 September 2024.
7. Herman, Steve (9 June 2018). "Trump Admits 'Unknown Territory' Awaits in Kim Summit". VOA. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 10 June 2018.
8. "Fraport Greece’s Development Plan for the New Era at the Greek Regional Airports" Archived 26 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine, fraport-greece.com
9. "Aegean Airlines / Air Canada Expands Codeshare Service from mid-July 2024".
10. "Aegean Airlines / Olympic Air NW23 Domestic Operation Changes". Aeroroutes. Archived from the original on 3 August 2023. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
11. "Aegean Airlines launching Chania-Rhodes service from Apr-2025".
12. "AEGEAN to Launch Flights to Tel Aviv from Ioannina, Chania and Kalamata". 27 January 2023.
13. "Air Serbia to launch new destinations in Greece". 13 December 2022.
14. "Animawings: zboruri din București spre nouă destinații din Grecia în 2023". 26 October 2022. Archived from the original on 29 November 2022. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
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16. "BRA NS24 Charter Program with Apollo / Spies / VING". Archived from the original on 2 April 2024. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
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24. "New Routes". eurowings.com. Archived from the original on 23 June 2020. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
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28. "Next summer flights". jet2.com. Archived from the original on 16 October 2022. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
29. "Luxair optimises its Winter flight schedule and introduces two additional destinations for next Summer season". 14 October 2022. Archived from the original on 16 October 2022. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
30. "Marabu Airlines Outlines NS23 Network". Archived from the original on 22 April 2023. Retrieved 30 June 2023.
31. "H Ryanair επαναφέρει το Αθήνα-Χανιά". 18 November 2022. Archived from the original on 3 April 2023. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
32. "Ryanair NS24 Network Additions – 10DEC23". Archived from the original on 12 December 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
33. "Ryanair May – Oct 2023 Italy Frequency Variations – 14MAY23". Aeroroutes.
34. "Ryanair Delivers Tourism Recovery at Nuremberg Airport – Ryanair's Corporate Website". 8 December 2021. Archived from the original on 10 December 2021. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
35. "Ryanair Opens Three New Bases in Greece for Summer '21 – Ryanair's Corporate Website". 24 March 2021. Archived from the original on 2 November 2021. Retrieved 2 November 2021.
36. "Ryanair NS23 A320 Network Additions – 05FEB23". Aeroroutes. Archived from the original on 14 March 2023. Retrieved 4 September 2024.
37. "Flight". apollorejser.dk. Archived from the original on 6 December 1998. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
38. "Smartwings Hungary NS23 Charter Network Additions". Archived from the original on 31 March 2023. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
39. "Flight Destinations". tui.nl. Archived from the original on 21 July 2017. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
40. "Only Flight". tui.se. Archived from the original on 19 February 2023. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
41. Liu, Jim (3 January 2020). "TUIfly Nordic outlines Norrkoping network in S20". routesonline.com.
42. "Only Flight". tui.no. Archived from the original on 6 February 2023. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
43. "Η TUS Airways σας ταξιδεύει σε 5 ελληνικούς προορισμούς αυτό το καλοκαίρι". 3 February 2023. Archived from the original on 22 March 2023. Retrieved 30 April 2023.
44. "CHANIA AIRPORT "I. DASKALOGIANNIS", ypa.gr
45. "CHANIA AIRPORT (CHQ) - 2017 vs 2016" Archived 25 December 2018 at the Wayback Machine, chq-airport.gr
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External links

Media related to Chania International Airport at Wikimedia Commons

• Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority - Our Airports
• HCAA website
• Greek-Airports website
• Greek Airport Guide Archived 30 May 2012 at archive.today
• Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority