Airports, Ports

Gateways of Crete



By plane

Heraklion airport

The island has three significant airports:

Nikos Kazantzakis at Heraklion. There are long term plans to replace Heraklion airport, which is too close to the city, by a new inland airport at Kasteli, southeast of Heraklion. It is a small airport located at the edge of Heraklion. Has basic facilities and a small parking lot.

Chania airport

Daskalogiannis airport at Chania. Chania airport is much smaller and far less busy than Heraklion airport. Located on the Northwestern part of the island and the airport is also known as the K. Daskalogiannis Airport.

A new public airport in Sitia. Sitia airport serves currently only a small number of domestic flights, mainly to/from Athens.

There are daily flights from Athens airport by OlympicAir, Aegean Airlines  and Athens Airways (Which take about 45min.) to Heraklion and Chania. Sky Express operates flights from Athens airport to Sitia. During the months of July and August Astra Airlines flies from Thessaloniki to Heraklion and Chania.

From April till early November charter airlines fly directly to [Heraklion] and [Chania] from many European airports.

Flights going from Heraklion and Chania to Thessolaniki take about 90 minutes. The airport at Heraklion also has daily flights to Rhodes which takes 1 hr. There are daily flights between Athens and Heraklion.

By boat

Ferry services from Piraeus to Heraklion, Rethimno and Chania and from Thessaloniki and the Cyclades to Heraklion.

By ferry

Crete has many ferry connections for example: You can go from Pireaus to Heraklion with Minoan Lines, to Chania with ANEK Lines or Hellenic Seaways, to Agios Nikolaos and Sitia with LANE Lines. LANE also operates routes from Agios Nikolaos / Sitia to Rhodes and other Greek islands. In the summer, there are daily catamarans (hydrofoils) from Heraklion to Santorini. The trip takes about 2.5 hours. Hellenic Seaways and SeaJets offer these sailings. You can also go to Crete by ferry from the Peloponnese (Gytheio) and Kithira island. This ferry lands on the west part of Crete, in Kissamos port.

The main ports in Greece that ferries come into are in Heraklion, Chania, Rethymno, Sitia, and Kastelli - Kissamos. Since there are no roads along the southwest coast there is a ferry line, with connections between Paleochora, Sougia, Agia Roumeli, Loutro and Hora Sfakion (Sfakia). There is also a connection with the islet of Gavdos, Europe's southernmost point (Cape Tripiti)