First flight carrying tourists for Summer 2020 arrives to fanfare at Thessaloniki’s Alexander the Great Airport on Monday. Photo source: AMNA
Life seems to be slowly but surely going back to normal once again in Greece as it reopens its borders to tourists on Monday. The first flight to officially kick off the tourist season in Northern Greece arrived today, at high noon at the Alexander The Great Airport in Thessaloniki.
After three months of strict lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first tourist flight to Northern Greece, from the carrier egean Airlines, arrived to great fanfare after departing from Munich, Germany. The passengers were welcomed by political officials from Thessaloniki and Greece’s Deputy Minister of Civil Protection Nikos Chardalias, who referred to the measures that are currently being taken to protect both tourists and the local population from COVID-19.
“Unfortunately, the quarantine kept us away from our homeland,” Elias Tsigas, one of the passengers among the flight’s 164 travelers told local website thestival.gr.
Tsigas added he was happy to be back in Greece “to see his loved ones,” and added that he was asked to undertake a coronavirus test upon landing, but he was not asked to quarantine until the results come out. “They told me that if the results are positive, they would contact me. They have all my details,” he noted.
Another passenger from Germany, who only gave his first name, Prodromos, said that he came to Greece for a vacation at his holiday home in Kavala. “We have a house there and we will stay for three weeks. We left the rain and now we have come to the beautiful sun.”
Thessaloniki, the second-largest city of Greece, is the commercial hub of the entire Balkan area.
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