Flights across Greece were temporarily suspended on Sunday, January 4, after most aviation radio frequencies were hit by massive interference, cutting communications with aircraft and forcing authorities to shut down the country’s airspace.
The disruption began shortly before 9am local time (07:00 GMT), leaving thousands of travellers stranded at airports, including Athens’ Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport.
Greece’s civil aviation authority said the interference appeared as continuous, involuntary “noise”, but the cause remains unclear.
Panagiotis Psarros, chair of the Association of Greek Air Traffic Controllers, said all frequencies were suddenly lost, meaning there was no way to communicate with aircraft in the sky. He criticised ageing infrastructure, saying it should have been replaced years ago.
For several hours, controllers could only manage flyovers before limited services were restored through backup frequencies on Sunday afternoon.
Authorities later confirmed that air traffic progressively resumed and has now been fully restored. Infrastructure and Transport Minister Christos Dimas said flight safety was not compromised.
By late afternoon, around 45 flights per hour were departing Greek airports, officials said. The air traffic controllers’ association described the scale of the breakdown, affecting frequencies used on the ground and by Athens Approach, as “unprecedented and unacceptable”.
An investigation into the source of the interference is under way.
