Too many ships and tourists for Greek ports to handle in August exodus

ATHENS – The good news is that Greece’s record tourism season is filling ferries with visitors and Greeks. The bad news is that the country’s ports are having difficulty dealing with the numbers.

With the season at its peak, too many ships are trying to land at destinations at nearly the same time, leaving little turnaround time, especially those carrying vehicles and with the popular islands overrun with people trying to get there and off all day long.

It’s of such concern that coastal shippers met with officials from the Shipping Ministry trying to figure out how to handle the influx.

The ports’ inability to simultaneously cater to more than one vessel forces ships to wait offshore for the other to dock first.

“Almost 90 percent of our ports are problematic and the necessary work would require plenty of time and money,” said Michalis Sakellis, head of the Association of Passenger Shipping Companies (SEEN) told Kathimerini.

“Once again we stress the need for measures. Our ports will become the main factor hampering the service of our islands in the future,” he added. “Insufficient port infrastructure is hampering growth and affecting the cost of services. Already the port of Rafina will be unable to cater to demand for ferry services scheduled for 2018, while similar problems are emerging this year too.”

Ports such as Athinios on Santorini, or those of Paros and Karpathos, and dozens more simply cannot cope, the paper said.

The major delays at ports and the quality of services provided have cost coastal shipping companies: “Ferry enterprises have not managed to make the most of the increase in tourism arrivals from abroad. Their revenues mostly rely on cargo traffic [i.e. lorries] as well as domestic tourism, which has been in constant decline over the last decade,” Giorgos Xiradakis, head of XRTC Business Consultants, said