Athens International Airport Collects ‘Airport of the Year’ Award

Ioanna Papadopoulou, Director Marketing and Communications, Athens International Airport. Photo source: AIA

Athens International Airport (AIA) was named “Airport of the Year” in the 10-30 million passengers category at the Air Transport News (ATN) 2015 awards ceremony that took place in Geneva on Saturday. The ATN Awards are the only international prizes that award all the main categories of the air transport industry.

“2014 has been a year of spectacular traffic development for our airport, which demonstrated an increase of 21.2 percent, within a very critical economic and political situation in Greece”, said AIA’s CEO, Yiannis Paraschis.

According to Mr. Paraschis, during the recent years marked by the Greek macroeconomic crisis, AIA managed to address significant market challenges, protect its business model and continue to deliver substantial value to all stakeholders and the Greek economy.

“Targeted efforts towards incentivizing traffic development and enhancing Athens’ attractiveness as a tourist destination have been key to that end”, he said.

“We believe that what makes an organisation capable of weathering a storm and come out even more efficient and effective, is clearly the ability of its human capital to continuously change and adapt. The Air Transport News award is yet another recognition for the people of AIA and the airport community at large.”

The Air Transport News award consists of a 24K gold-plated olive tree wreath inspired with the prize given to Olympic Games winners in Ancient Greece.

Winners were chosen by a combination of more than 4,200 votes from Air Transport News readers and the verdict of a jury of internationally known industry experts. The jury, many of whom hold executive positions in the air transport industry, carefully examined the profile of each of the finalists in each of the 14 categories before reaching its final verdict.