Where a Helicopter May Land in Greece

At approved landing sites, with permission, and by day. A helicopter in Greece operates to airports, to licensed heliports and to private sites that meet the requirements in the European air operations rules and Greek law, and every one of them needs prior permission from whoever runs it. A villa pad is not a landing site because it is flat and empty; it is one because it has been assessed and permitted. That network is what puts islands with no airport — Sifnos, Folegandros, Koufonisia — within an hour of Athens.

Three kinds of place

A helicopter in Greece lands in one of three kinds of place, and the difference between them is administrative rather than physical.

Airports. Every airport that takes fixed-wing traffic takes helicopters, under the same coordination and with the same handling.

Licensed heliports. Sites established and permitted for helicopter use, which is how islands with no runway are reached at all.

Private sites. A pad at a house, an estate, a hotel or a yacht’s helideck, assessed and permitted for the purpose.

What none of the three is: a field, a headland, a terrace or a beach that happens to be flat. The aircraft is capable of landing there. That is a different question from whether it may.

What the law asks of a landing site

The framework is European and Greek together.

Operators select and use landing sites under CAT.OP.MPA.105 of Commission Regulation (EU) No 965/2012, and under Article 12 of Presidential Decree 19/2009, with the operational detail published in AIP Greece — the national aeronautical information publication, which carries the procedures for the sites themselves, including private heliports.

The Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority set out what it expects of operators and flight crews in safety notice SIAN 02-2022, which requires compliance with those provisions and with the AIP’s air traffic instructions, and tells operators to treat commercial pressure as a safety hazard to be monitored — a line worth reading twice by anybody who has ever pressed a pilot to fly.

A new pad has to meet the authority’s requirements before it becomes a site. That is a process with a timescale, and it is not a thing to begin in July.

Permission belongs to the site, not to the pilot

Every landing needs prior permission from whoever operates the place, and a private pad needs the written authorisation of its owner as well.

That has a consequence people find counter-intuitive. A helicopter company can tell you that an aircraft is available and still not be able to tell you that you may land where you want to land — those are two separate permissions from two separate parties, and only one of them belongs to the operator.

The same applies to a yacht. A helideck landing is at the vessel’s discretion and on its terms, and it is a considerably more demanding operation than a pad ashore.

Daylight

These flights are day operations. They are planned and flown between dawn and dusk, which in practice sets the boundary of every helicopter itinerary in Greece.

A dinner on another island that ends at midnight does not end with a helicopter. Either the aircraft moves before dusk or the night is spent where the evening is, and it is far better to know which of those is happening before the invitation goes out.

What the aircraft is really for

The case for a helicopter in Greece is not speed between airports. It is access to places without one.

Licensed sites across the Cyclades put islands with no runway — Sifnos, Folegandros, Amorgos, Koufonisia, Schinoussa, Antiparos, Anafi and others — within a short flight of Athens, when the alternative is a flight to the nearest airport and then a boat that runs on its own schedule and stops running when the wind gets up.

That is also the argument’s limit. Where a good runway exists and the party is large, an aircraft that carries everybody in one movement is usually the better answer, and runways in the Greek islands sets out which islands have one.

What to settle before counting on one

  1. Whether the intended landing site is an approved site, and who operates it. A name, not an assurance.
  2. Who gives permission, and whether it has been given for your date rather than in principle.
  3. The last departure of the day, worked back from dusk rather than from dinner.
  4. What happens in wind. A helicopter is more weather-limited than a boat on some days and less on others; the operator will tell you which, if asked.
  5. Where the baggage goes. Payload on a short-field summer flight is the constraint nobody thinks to raise until the ramp.