Originally Posted by
boeing_eng
Italy and Sicily are very popular, especially with Monarch and the Greek Islands not yet much on the map - although Athens was then a big charter destination for both holidays, and to join cruise ships.
I flew down to ATH several times with BY in the early 80's. At that time many of the airports on the popular smaller islands could not handle jet traffic (so a lot of holidaymakers ended up traveling on ferries via ATH which was indeed very busy with charter traffic)
Yes indeed! I guess you recall the old ATH international terminal with all the backpackers sleeping on the floor and the whole place buzzing at 1am in the morning with about 20-30 charter flights all checking in...dogs running around the terminal, cockroaches crawling up the check in desk.
Rhodes and Crete were just opening up - both having been quite upmarket and expensive destinations at first -
Cyprus (NCO) having been lost to the holiday market after 1974 invasion.
Rhodes was building a new airport to replace the old and rather scary Maritsa WW2 airfield located between, and surrounded by mountains with a dodgy set of Navaids, and no radar.
I remember going in there on the jump seat one night on a very delayed BCAL 707 and it was pitch black - the FE suddenly saw the sun rise slowly creeping up in the East and the silhouette of the mountains was revealed.
Mykonos started to get jets early-mid 80's (BY 737's i think, were one of the first UK charters to go in there)