It has been preliminarily established that the disruption was caused by issues with radio frequencies, prompting authorities to issue a directive to cancel all flights in Greek airspace. This led to a breakdown in communication systems between aircraft and air traffic control.
In the initial moments of the crisis, international flights that were descending landed as scheduled. However, by noon, the state broadcaster ERT reported that all flights heading to Greek airports began receiving instructions to divert to other countries, with most aircraft directed to airports in Turkey.
According to data from FlightRadar, Greek airspace was nearly empty, while Turkish airspace, on the contrary, was under heavy load.
The situation with departures is also critical: from 09:30, over two hours, only two out of 50 scheduled flights from Athens airport took off. Passengers are accumulating in terminals, while during the Christmas holidays, the load on air traffic is traditionally high.
Air traffic in Greece has been temporarily halted due to communication issues.
The Civil Aviation Authority confirmed the existence of problems with landings and takeoffs at all airports in the country. Specialists from the agency, together with technical services, are working to determine the causes of the failure and rectify the situation. Sources report that the capacity of radio frequencies has sharply decreased, making communication between aircraft and control towers nearly impossible.
