Athens advice please
 

This is BA-related in the sense that I will be flying in to ATH on BA with my wife and two small children (3 and 5) in September and I wanted to check a connection time with any Athenians or Greece experts who might be lurking in this esteemed company!

We arrive (we are travelling in the first rows of CE, which might help) at 18:30 on a weekday evening in September and we have tickets for a ferry leaving Piraeus at 21:00.

Because of the tight connection, I abandoned the idea of car hire at ATH and bought foot passenger tickets for the ferry, choosing to rent a car the next morning on Chios instead.

Hellenic Lines has allowed me to print out boarding passes for the ferry already and we can travel hand-baggage only without an issue.

Does anyone know how long it takes to get from ATH to the port in a taxi, assuming we get out of the airport between 19:00 and 19:30?

I really don't know Athens well, and if traffic is bad at that time of the day and all this looks too tight, I could move the flights to the day before. We are flying TLS-LHR earlier that day, otherwise I would have moved to an earlier LHR-ATH, of course...

Thanks for your input!
HL

The chance of that flight being late is high - average delay is 24 minutes.

Then, if you do catch the ferry, you end up Chios at 5am.

Each to their own, but this seems about the least efficient way to get a family with two small kids from the South of France to Greece...

It takes up to around 90 min by bus that stops everywhere (I've had faster trips than that though). Taxi is up to around 60 minutes. If you get the taxi to drop you off at the right gate for your ferry it should really not be an issue in terms of timing, barring very bad traffic.

What's more worrying would be the late arrival of your flight.

I did this precise trip yesterday, albeit in the other direction! Late morning, Piraeus to ATH took 50 minutes with a crazy taxi driver, 55€, bit of traffic, some stop-start but not too bad. Getting off the ship at Piraeus took a good 30 minutes however, which led to me taking the taxi rather than the bus/metro, That turned out not to be necessary since my flight was delayed a bit (and was a mid haul 321 so I was very happy!).

However you are in the rush hour, so I can see it may stretch to 90 minutes if you were unlucky. So personally I think it's a bit tight unless HBO. Fly LHR-JMK and ferry from there?

I agree it sounds a bit tight. We travelled the coast road from the Glyfada towards Piraeus (the middle section of your route) at around 6.30 pm in July last year and the traffic was horrible. We were aware of the time because we had a restaurant booking we were trying to get to. We only made it because we'd allowed loads of extra time.

It does look a tad tight.

Food for thought.

Will look at other options!

Thank you all!

As everybody else suggested, it's sort of gambling with good chances, though. If you decide to play it safe, there's a late OA flight to Chios that leaves after 9 pm. I guess more expensive than the ferry but absolutely doable.

PS If I'm not mistaken, ferries to Chios don't stop at Mykonos. Flying there doesn't help.

I suggest take a flight to Khios with Aegean Airlines/ Olympic Air (about 40-50 euros per ticket and discout prices for children)
http://en.aegeanair.com/

The ferry from Piraeus Port to Khios is tired (about 10 hours).
Also the cost is the same with plane if u include a cabin

Also u can use an uberX (check availability) or Uber Taxi to the port

There's a daily ferry from Mykonos New Port to Chios, leaves between 21 hrs and 00:30 hrs every day during summer. This in addition to the direct Piraeus (etc) services.

You're right, I'm wrong! It's the "άγονη γραμμή" (sterile line= government subsidised line) that leaves Piraeus at ~4 pm and arrives in Kavala at 7 pm the next day (stops at 11 islands on the way, including Mykonos and Chios); goes 2-3 times a week. If this is a possibility for the OP, (s)he should check the schedule at the Hellenic Seaways' site.

Hi Guys, I would need some tips on Athens airport too. I have booked a flight departing from Ath at 18:15 with Ryanair and I would like to book a flight from Milos to Athens ( Olympic air)that is schedule to land in ATH at 17:05. Do you think this connection is too tight considering that I will hold 2 separate tickets?
Thanks in advance

70 minutes is theoretically enough for your connection BUT... Are you sure that your incoming flight will be on time? If it's late, goodbye Ryanair ticket!

The actual average time needed between landing (when coming from Milos) and boarding the nest flight is: 5 min. for taxiing, 10 min. for getting onto the bus and driving to the terminal, 15 min. walking to, and passing security, 5 min. walking to the gate. Add to this 15 min. for getting you luggage if you've checked something, makes a total of 35 to 50 minutes. Since you have to be at the gate at least 10 min. to get onto the last bus (Ryanair always parks at a remote spot) you see that with even a 15 minutes delay, which could happen easily, you run a high risk missing your connection.

Thanks Louis! should I change terminal with a bus once in ATH? I don t have any luggage to board.Anyway thanks for the detail informations!

No! You'll be bussed to the main terminal from your plane. The smaller OA planes don't use the jetties.

Once in the main building take the escalator up. For reasons that I never understood, you'll need to show your BC for the connecting flight to the person standing there. Then proceed to the real BC checking desk and to security after that. Are you flying intra-Schengen with Ryanair? If yes, head to the B gates; if not, go to the A gates where you'll also go through a passport check.

Again, be careful: it's tight...

Thanks Luis, I will look for other solutions than