I am looking at flights to Santorini for Sept 2013. There seems to be two roughly different ways to book this segment from the US.
1. Book all the way to Santorini using major carriers. All of which seem to require a change in ATH to Aegean for the Athens-Santorini segment.
2. Book a transatlantic flight only to Germany and use of a German airline, Air Berlin, Condor, etc, having high season direct flights to Santorini from Germany. Being on separate reservations, leave enough time margin to deal with transatlantic flight snafus.
Is there a gotcha with the German direct flight option? I plan to extend the time in Germany to several days to use the buffer between the two reservations to visit a few more places in Germany.
Flights to Santorini without stopping in ATH
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I'm not sure why you want to avoid changing over in Athens, because it is one of the best airports I have ever used. If you are worried about strikes, routing yourself through Germany would double your exposure, with both German and Greek stoppages a possibility. If I'm not mistaken, there were more airport/air traffic strikes in Germany than in Greece this year.
Both Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air fly to Santorini.
The direct flights into Santorini are seasonal. Make sure they're still available in September.
If you aren't set on stopping in Germany there are also direct flights from London on EasyJet. The fares are very cheap if you buy your tickets far enough in advance.
I'm also curious avoiding Athens unless it's because you can get a better deal on a flight from the States into Germany or another location.
I actually would prefer Athens for more options to get to Santorini.
curious about
Having seen Athens in Sept. I think you should see it once but if there's a way to avoid it twice that's better.
Our way is to fly to Venice (from Australia) and then fly Milan to Crete direct. You can then get to Santorini easily then fly or ferry back to Athens and home.