Economy of Greece - Transport

Transport

As of 2010, Greece has a total of 81 airports, of which 67 are paved and six have runways longer than 3,047 meters. Of these airports, two are classified as "international" by the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority, but 15 offer international services. Additionally Greece has 9 heliports. Greece does not have a flag carrier, but the country's airline industry is dominated by Olympic Air, the largest airline by number of destinations served, and Aegean Airlines, the largest airline by number of passengers carried.

Between 1975 and 2009 Olympic Airlines was the country's flag carrier, but financial problems lead to its privatization in 2009. Both Olympic Air and Aegean have won awards for their services; in 2009 and 2011 Aegean Airlines was awarded the "Best regional airline in Europe" award by Skytrax, and also has two gold and one silver awards by the ERA, while Olympic Air holds one silver ERA award for "Airline of the Year" as well as a "Condé Nast Traveller 2011 Readers Choice Awards: Top Domestic Airline" award.

The Greek road network is made up of 116,711 km of roads, of which 948 km are highways, ranking 37th worldwide. Since the entry of Greece to the European Community (now the European Union), a number of important projects (such as the Egnatia Odos and the Attiki Odos) have been co-funded by the organization, helping to upgrade the country's road network. In 2007, Greece ranked 8th in the European Union in goods transported by road, at almost 500 million tons.

Greece's rail network is estimated to be at 2,548 km. Rail transport in Greece is operated by TrainOSE, a subsidiary of the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE). Most of the country's network is standard gauge (1,565 km), while the country also has 983 km of narrow gauge. A total of 764 km of rail are electrified. Greece has rail connections with Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey. A total of two suburban railway systems (Proastiakos) are in operation (in Athens and Thessaloniki), while one metro system is operational in Athens with another under construction.

According to Eurostat, Greece's largest port by tons of goods transported in 2010 is the port of Aghioi Theodoroi, with 17.38 million tons. The Port of Thessaloniki comes second with 15.8 million tons, followed by the Port of Piraeus, with 13.2 million tons, and the port of Eleusis, with 12.37 million tons. The total number of goods transported through Greece in 2010 amounted to 124.38 million tons, a considerable drop from the 164.3 million tons transported through the country in 2007.

In 2010 Piraeus handled 513,319 TEUs, followed by Thessaloniki, which handled 273,282 TEUs. In the same year, 83.9 million people passed through Greece's ports, 12.7 million through the port of Paloukia in Salamis, another 12.7 through the port of Perama, 9.5 million through Piraeus and 2.7 million through Igoumenitsa.