I don’t think they make money overall. It is just an “employment scheme”. The two policemen who laboriously check your passports before a flight from Sitia to Karpathos (!) are each on perhaps 40-50k but they have little to do all day so they have to bill each sucker passing through a lot of money.
Greece works differently to N Europe. In N Europe, if a business has 100 people and doesn’t need 20 of them, it chucks out the 20 and they end up on social security where they rot. In Greece, there is a recognition that keeping all 100 employed is better socially, especially as they have extended families in which many are not working and are being supported by those who are working.
Obviously the above is an over-simplification (e.g. the 20 made redundant don’t actually “rot”; only some do, while the rest will find other jobs) but you get the idea. In Greece, every person with a job is supporting a whole load of others, beyond their immediate family, and thus avoiding them having to claim social security. Or maybe they claim social security anyway 
but at a lower level.
Overall, Greece is fairly easy to fly GA around, because they speak English, and crucially the ground staff speak English which is really not the case in some countries further north. The biggest planning challenge is probably the airport opening times.
Sebastian_G wrote:
What really needs improving is the efficiency of those operations.
I agree. Keeping airports open as employment schemes is very inefficient. I wonder if there is a better way to keep them open and viewed by the community as a useful infrastructure.
Peter wrote:
Yes Friedrichshafen is ok. Not necessarily quick, IME, because you have to go through the airline terminal. Maybe someone has a recent report.
Just posted it. Not the quickest.
