The incredible Greek airport with one of the shortest runways in Europe

For many holidaymakers, the long taxi down the airport runway before take-off can seem to go on for ages.

It can feel like the plane is never going to take off as it rumbles along the concrete before the engines come to life and it leaves the ground.

While most runways are fairly long, many visitors to an airport on a tiny Greek island may not know it has the shortest runway for passenger jets in mainland Europe.

The runway at Skiathos is just 5,341 feet long, considerably shorter than normal.

For comparison London Heathrow’s northern runway is around 12,801 feet long, Manchester has a runway that is 10,948 feet long and Birmingham’s runway is 10,013 feet.

Despite this relatively short length, the airport can accommodate aircraft as large as a Boeing 767-200 and sees flights from all over Europe.

From Britain, these include flights to most airports up and down the country, with many seasonal flights operating to the Aegean island.

The island’s terrain is so rough that land had to be reclaimed from the sea to allow construction of the airport, which opened to passengers in 1972.

It now sees hundreds of thousands of passengers arrive and depart there each year, with more than 552,000 in 2023 – including more than 192,000 arriving from or heading to the UK.

The fact it is near a public road, along with its location and number of flights, make Skiathos Airport a popular destination for plane spotters – with many people sharing photos of huge aeroplanes coming in low to land.

While it is one of the shortest runways in Europe, it does not have the shortest runway in a European country.

That honour goes to the Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport on Saba, which is just 1,312 feet long and is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The catch is that Saba is an island in the Caribbean, on the other side of the Atlantic.