A Greek island
ELEFTHERIOS VENIZELOS international
airport in Athens opened to much fanfare 12 years ago. But it already
looks like it has seen better days. Built to serve 21m passengers a
year, it has suffered a steep decline in traffic since the onset of the
financial crisis. It now handles just 12m passengers a year—25% fewer
than in 2007. That number is likely to fall again in 2013. Paint flakes
from the airport’s 24 jet bridges, of which perhaps only 10 are now in
regular use. To save money, the air conditioning stays off until June.
Foreign
airlines have fled. Delta axed winter flights to New York last year,
leaving Greece without a direct connection to America for the first time
in nearly 70 years. United Airlines, Thai Airways, Gulf Air and Czech
Airlines have also left. Last year Singapore Airlines moved its regional
operation to Istanbul. Olympic Air’s brush with bankruptcy deprived it
of its entire long-haul network, including routes to Dubai, New York and
Johannesburg. Intercontinental connectivity is far worse than at other
southern European airports like Madrid and Rome. Although both the
airport’s full-sized runways are capable of handling the Airbus A380
superjumbo, 59% of the airport’s traffic is now carried on narrow-bodies
and turboprops to domestic destinations.
Greece’s
cash-strapped government is desperate to prevent its oversized airport
from becoming a white elephant. It thinks Chinese money will help. On a
visit to Beijing in May, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras promised to
unravel the red carpet for Chinese investors, who already run part of
the port of Piraeus and who plan to redevelop a large, disused airport
in the centre of Athens. Chinese tourists are also becoming familiar in
popular resorts like Santorini and Mykonos. Their numbers have doubled
in three years and a new advertising campaign on Chinese television aims
to attract more.
To cement these links, the government
wants Athens to have direct flights to Beijing. “We will be your
gateway to Europe,” said Mr Samaras. Spare capacity leaves Chinese and
south-east Asian airlines with plenty of room for onward connections to
other European destinations, he says. The government has submitted route
development proposals to several Chinese airlines, though Greece’s Kathimerini newspaper claims that Air China and Hainan Airlines are uninterested.
In
fact, relying on foreign airlines’ fickle business plans is rarely a
smart move. The government was delighted last November when Qatar
Airways announced plans to launch a new daily service between Athens and
New York, possibly bringing the A380 to Greece for the first time. But
Qatar dropped its plans in April. Many voters openly question whether
Greece, about to embark on a fire-sale of state assets, including
regional airports and hotels, can trust non-European partners to deliver
on their promises.
In reality, beggars can’t be
choosers. Greece’s tourist industry—which makes up a quarter of its
GDP—desperately needs support from foreign airlines and investors. So
the government has also abandoned a long tradition of protecting
domestic carriers from foreign competition. To some extent, the plan has
worked: Delta has resumed seasonal services to New York this summer,
and Air Canada will serve Athens using its new low-cost outfit, Air
Canada Rouge, rather than dropping flights altogether.
As
Gulliver reluctantly departed the Greek sunshine this week, there were
fewer than a dozen planes on the tarmac, and no queue for take-off. It
will take a determined effort by the government to ensure that Athens’s
airport doesn’t meet the same fate as the city’s nearby Olympic Park,
which was completed in 2004 but now looks almost as ruined as the
Parthenon.
No comments:
Post a Comment