Crete’s Kasteli Airport now scheduled to open in 2025, and straight into a tourist dogfight

Another of the postponed airport construction projects in Europe raised its head again as it was confirmed that the anticipated opening date for the new Kasteli/Heraklion Airport in Crete, the Greek island that attracts most tourists, is now 2025.

If and when the airport opens, it will take over the commercial traffic handled by Heraklion Nikos Kazantzakis Airport. The project includes the construction of a 72,000sqm terminal, 3200m runway and 27 aircraft parking spaces on the apron.

Kasteli is important but not critical to Crete, but is a new facility that will find itself in direct competition with another airport not far away that has been modernised by Fraport Greece, thus bringing two of the hardest punching heavyweight private sector operators into the same ring for the first time.