(MENAFN) Athens International Airport in Greece has experienced flight hold-ups since Thursday after air traffic controllers limited the volume of flights they oversee each hour, according to a report by a daily newspaper on Saturday.

This reduction in managed flights comes as part of a disagreement concerning bonuses and structural changes within the air traffic control team.

Controllers cut down the number of aircraft they handle hourly, resulting in delayed flights at Athens International Airport starting Thursday.

Specifically, on Thursday, controllers capped arrivals at 23 per hour for October, a decrease from 31, and limited departures to 33 per hour, compared to 36 previously.

By Friday, arrivals increased slightly to 28 per hour, yet still remained below the 36 arrivals typical during the summer months.

On Friday, Aegean Airlines announced that air traffic control at Athens had reduced arrival capacity by approximately 25%, causing morning delays of 30 to 40 minutes, which grew longer as the day went on.

These recent disruptions followed Ryanair's August announcement that a malfunction in Athens International Airport’s air traffic control equipment caused delays to and from Greece, affecting 12 flights and impacting over 2,000 passengers.

In a statement, Ryanair noted, “So far in 2025, over 5,000 Ryanair flights and over 900,000 Ryanair passengers have been unfairly delayed due to Greek ATC (Air Traffic Control) mismanagement and staff shortages, making Greece the 5th worst performing ATC service for delays in Europe.”

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