A narrow waterfall drops down a pale limestone gorge framed by green shrubs and trees under a blue sky, near Nydri on Lefkada.
Sustainable Tourism

Aktion Airport: 82.5% of 2025 passengers arrived in June to September

Author/Editor: Kouvaris, G.N. Othisis.eu 6 min read
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In October 2025, Aktion Airport (PVK), the main air gateway for Lefkada, handled 56,637 passengers, 9.0% more than in October 2024. In December 2025 it handled 319. Fraport Greece’s full-year traffic tables for Aktion record both figures.

June to September 2025 carried most of Aktion’s year

Aktion’s total for 2025 was 875,962 passengers, 6.2% above the 824,894 recorded in 2024. June to September 2025 alone carried 723,013 passengers, about 82.5% of that annual total. August 2025 peaked at 203,746; July 2025 at 199,753; June 2025 at 158,083; September 2025 at 161,431.

Outside those four months, international traffic at Aktion almost stopped. In January 2025 the airport recorded 10 international passengers; in February 2025, 6; in March 2025, 181. In November 2025 it recorded 1,830 international passengers. Domestic traffic for the whole of 2025 was 13,264 passengers, 7.6% below 2024.

Visitors who drive across the floating bridge can still reach Lefkada when those winter months are quiet. The scheduled international flight board at Aktion in January to March 2025 and in November 2025 did not give the same option.

May 2025 and October 2025 already grew

May 2025 reached 82,536 passengers, 7.3% above May 2024. October 2025’s passenger rise came with capacity: 526 flights, 16.9% more than in October 2024.

INSETE’s Statistical Bulletin No. 100 recorded the same October pattern across Ionian airports in 2024: international air arrivals rose 15.3% year on year in October 2024, then fell sharply in November 2024. Greek seasonal hotels averaged 5.8 operating months in 2024.

National seasonality eased in 2025; island air did not

Bank of Greece provisional data put travel receipts for January to November 2025 at €23,003 million, 8.9% above the same period of 2024. November 2025 receipts alone rose 27.7% to €726.3 million. Those national totals are weighted toward Athens and a few year-round gateways. They do not show as winter seats into Aktion.

INSETE’s October 2026 study of Greek tourism reports that the third-quarter share of inbound arrivals fell from 56.0% in 2019 to 52.4% in 2025. The third-quarter share of overnights fell from 58.5% in 2019 to 52.9% in 2025, while the fourth-quarter overnight share rose from 11.4% to 15.2%. Over the same years the main island destinations (the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, Crete and the Ionian Islands) still took more than 70% of Greece’s inbound international air arrivals in June to September 2025.

For the Ionian Islands specifically, INSETE records a 4.1% drop in tourism receipts in 2025 against 2024, even though visits rose, because average stay and spend per night fell. The same study estimates the break-even point of a Greek hotel room at about €124.6, against €108.7 in Cyprus. Higher taxes and fees, it argues, push hotels to open later and close earlier.

Madeira added winter seats in 2024/25 and stretched its festivals

Madeira’s regional government published the IATA winter 2024/25 schedule for Funchal and Porto Santo. Against the previous winter it listed twelve new operations, 1,158,383 seats (up 10.62%) and 6,236 frequencies (up 11.04%).

ANA Aeroportos linked that winter build to an 8% rise in winter demand and to a year in which the Madeira airports passed five million passengers in 2024.

The Regional Directorate of Statistics of Madeira’s final 2024 tourism release recorded 11.8 million tourist-accommodation overnight stays (up 7.4% on 2023) and net bed-occupancy of 66.8%. The Flower Festival, once a weekend, ran for a month in 2024; New Year programming ran from December 2024 into Epiphany 2025. Winter seats stayed on the board; the calendar gave visitors weeks, not a single weekend.

Aktion had no comparable international winter board in 2025. Madeira’s occupancy rate rests on winter frequencies Lefkada does not yet fly.

Malta’s January to March 2025 inbound numbers

Malta’s National Statistics Office recorded 693,492 inbound tourists in January to March 2025, 18.9% above the first quarter of 2024. February 2025 alone reached 210,305 (up 24.2%). Collective-accommodation guests in that quarter were 567,770 (up 14.8%), with net occupancy at 52.6%, up from 49% in the first quarter of 2024. Malta runs year-round scheduled flying and a city-and-culture product that does not depend on beach weather.

Lefkada’s climate and product mix differ from Malta’s. Malta’s winter hotel guests arrive on scheduled flights that run all year. Aktion’s published international board largely ends with the summer schedule, and hotels that close after October each year match that board.

What Lefkada can do while Aktion’s winter board stays thin

Three steps already have evidence on Othisis. None of them depends on adding December charter flights before the shoulder months are filled.

First, keep the mountain product open when beach demand falls. A longer Lefkada season starts in the mountain villages sets out how Karya, Englouvi and the inland trails work as a shoulder product.

Ano Chora built its October on chestnuts. Karya could build a lathouria festival shows how a single harvest calendar can pin a month to a place. Madeira did the same when it stretched the Flower Festival from a weekend to a month.

Second, keep rooms open in Lefkada Town, Karya and Nydri through May and October, the months that already grew in 2025. Lošinj Kept Its Hotels Open Longer: A Plan for Lefkada Town, Karya and Nydri treats open-days as an operational target. Without those rooms, October 2025’s extra flights have nowhere for those passengers to stay.

Third, sell the weeks that already work. September in Lefkada: What Changes After August maps the first quiet month for visitors. Kalymnos: how climbing made October the busy month shows how one sport, with infrastructure and guiding capacity, can invert a beach calendar. Lefkada’s hiking, trail running and sailing shoulders are closer to that pattern than to Malta’s winter city break.

For Lefkada the sequence the 2025 traffic tables support starts with May and October: more flights already exist in those months, and mountain and town products can meet them. Winter is a separate brief: domestic and drive-in demand, events that do not need Aktion, and only then any case for winter seats. Aktion’s 319 passengers in December 2025 remain the number any winter plan has to design around.

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