Chania airport (CHQ): the one that serves western Crete
Half the people who book Heraklion for a holiday in Chania did not know there was a choice. It costs them two hours and twenty minutes of motorway on the way in, and the same again on the way home.
Chania International Airport « Daskalogiannis », code CHQ, sits on the Akrotiri peninsula 14 km east of Chania, on a headland above Souda Bay. It is a small airport with a heavily seasonal timetable, and it is the right way into the western third of Crete. Most of this page is about that last point, because it is where the hours go.
CHQ or Heraklion: the only question that matters
Crete is 260 km long. Heraklion sits in the middle of it and Chania near the western end, and the two airports are two hours and twenty minutes apart by road. Booking the wrong one does not ruin a holiday, but it removes most of a day from it and adds a stretch of the national road at each end, at the two moments you are least equipped for it.
The fare gap is what causes the mistake. Heraklion is bigger, better served and often cheaper on the same dates, so a comparison site shows it first and the name of the island reassures everyone. Crete is Crete. Then the car hire desk turns out to be 155 km from the hotel.
Choose where you are heading and the airport follows
Which part of Crete are you actually going to?
Chania town, Akrotiri, Kissamos, Balos, Falassarna, Elafonissi
Fly into CHQ
- From CHQ
- 20 min to Chania, under an hour to Kissamos
- From HER
- 2 h 20 to Chania, over 3 h to Kissamos
This is the half of Crete that CHQ exists for. Landing at Heraklion instead costs you two hours of motorway on arrival and the same again on the way home, on days you have already spent in an aircraft.
Where Chania airport actually is
The airport is not in Chania and it is not on the way to anywhere. It occupies the flat top of Akrotiri, the blunt peninsula that closes Souda Bay to the north, and the road in curls back down to the coast before it reaches the town. That is why 14 km takes a little over twenty minutes rather than ten. Everything on the map below is placed from its real coordinates.
The island, and the two airports
One detail is worth knowing before you land. The runway belongs to the Hellenic Air Force, and the civil terminal is a tenant on a working military base. In practice this changes nothing about your flight, but it explains the fencing, the signs about photography, and the fact that the airfield is far larger than the small terminal building would suggest.
The bay below the airport is also where the overnight boat from Piraeus ties up. Souda is the ferry port for Chania, about fifteen minutes down the hill from the terminal and twenty minutes from the town, which makes the arrive-by-sea and leave-by-air combination easier here than almost anywhere else in Greece. It is worth remembering if the summer fares out of CHQ look unreasonable in one direction: sailing in and flying home is a real option, not a stunt.
How long everything takes from the terminal
Driving times outside July and August, when the road out of Chania and the last stretch to Elafonissi both slow down. Bus frequencies move with the season, so the right column says which line exists rather than pretending to know today's timetable.
| From CHQ to | By road | Driving | On the bus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chania town | 14 km | 20 to 25 min | Airport line to the KTEL station, loosely timed on arrivals |
| Rethymno | 75 km | About 1 h | Change in Chania, then the frequent Rethymno coach |
| Kissamos, for the Balos boats | 55 km | Around 50 min | Change in Chania, several a day in season |
| Balos car park | About 75 km | Around 1 h 45, last 8 km on a rough track | No bus. Boat from Kissamos, or the track and the walk down |
| Samaria gorge, Xyloskalo entrance | 55 km | About 1 h | Early KTEL departure from Chania, season only |
| Elafonissi | 90 km | 1 h 45 to 2 h on winding road | One seasonal run a day from Chania, out and back |
| Paleochora | 90 km | Around 1 h 45 | Several KTEL departures a day from Chania |
| Heraklion airport (HER) | 155 km | About 2 h 20 | Chania to Heraklion coach, roughly 3 h, then the city bus |
Two rows in that table catch people out. Balos is not a drive, it is an expedition: the last eight kilometres are unsurfaced, most rental contracts forbid it, and the alternative is the boat from Kissamos, which is a half day in itself. And Elafonissi is a lot further than its reputation as a Chania beach suggests. Both are day trips, not afternoons.
Getting out of the airport
Four ways out, and they sort themselves quickly. The public bus to the KTEL station in Chania is the cheap one, timed loosely around arrivals rather than running on a clock, and thin outside the season. Taxis queue outside arrivals on a fixed tariff for the town run. Pre-booked transfers meet you inside and cost more than a taxi for the convenience of not negotiating anything at midnight. And the car hire desks are in the terminal, a few steps from the belt.
Western Crete is car country and there is no polite way around it. The bus network radiates from Chania town, so almost every journey that is not Chania to Rethymno means going in first and out again, and the good parts of this coast are villages, gorge mouths and beaches at the end of roads with one bus a day in August and none in April. If your plan involves Sougia, Loutro, Falassarna or an early start for Samaria, take the car.
A seasonal airport, and when the season ends
CHQ handled just under four million passengers in 2024, and the overwhelming majority of them passed through between May and October. That number describes a busy summer airport, not a busy airport. Most direct European routes stop in the second half of October and do not restart until spring, which is the single most useful thing to know about flying here.
What survives the winter is the domestic side: Athens all year, Thessaloniki most of it, and the connections that hang off them. So a February trip to Chania is perfectly possible and it goes via Athens, with an extra hour in the air and a connection to build into the day. If you are travelling in November, March or April, check Heraklion as well before you settle. It holds more of its direct flying through the shoulder months, and the drive across is a fair trade for not connecting twice.
Inside the terminal
One terminal, one level for most purposes, and a building that was sized for a smaller airport than the one it became. Check-in, security and gates follow each other in a straight line, which makes it easy to navigate and impossible to escape when it fills. There is a café landside, a handful of shops and a duty free airside, and enough seating to be uncomfortable at the peak rather than impossible.
The queues come in waves, not steadily. Charter departures cluster in the early morning and again in the late afternoon, and on a Saturday in high summer the security line can reach the door. Three hours before a July departure is reasonable; two is fine in April. Do the eating before security if you have a choice, and note that a delayed flight here means sitting airside with limited alternatives, because there is nowhere else to go.
What CHQ puts within reach
The case for this airport is what lies within two hours of it. Chania itself, with the Venetian harbour and the lighthouse in the picture at the top of this page. Rethymno, an hour east, with its own Venetian old town and fewer people in it. Balos and Falassarna to the north-west. Elafonissi on the south-west corner. The Samaria gorge, sixteen kilometres downhill from the Omalos plateau to a village on the Libyan Sea with no road to it. And the whole southern coast beyond, which you reach by boat or on foot as often as by car.
An hour and three quarters from the terminal
None of that is more than a day trip from a base in or near Chania, which is what makes the western end of the island work as a single holiday. If you want to see how the rest of Crete arranges itself around it, seeing how the four regions sit end to end answers it faster than a list of drive times. The other Greek entry points sit on the airports hub.
Which is also the argument for choosing the bed before the flight. Chania town, the Apokoronas villages, Platanias and Kissamos are all inside an hour of this terminal and they are four completely different holidays, so it is worth reading what each part of the island is actually like to stay in before a cheap fare into the wrong end of Crete decides it for you.
Questions people ask about Chania airport
Is Chania airport better than Heraklion?
Neither is better in the abstract. They serve different halves of a very long island. If your trip is Chania town, Kissamos, Balos, Elafonissi, Paleochora or the Samaria gorge, Chania airport saves you between two and three hours of driving in each direction. If it is Knossos, Malia, Agios Nikolaos, Elounda or anywhere east of that, Heraklion does the same in reverse. Rethymno sits in the middle and works from either. Where Heraklion wins outright is choice: more airlines, more routes, cheaper fares on the same dates, and flights that keep running through the winter when Chania has almost stopped.
What airlines fly out of Chania, Crete?
Aegean, Olympic Air and Sky Express run the year-round domestic side, mostly to Athens and Thessaloniki. Everything else is European and mostly seasonal: Ryanair, easyJet, Jet2, TUI, Wizz Air, Transavia, Eurowings, Condor, Norwegian, SAS and the Lufthansa group all appear in the summer schedule, along with charter flights sold as part of a package. The list is worth checking for your own dates rather than in general, because routes are added and dropped every season and very few of them survive November.
Is Chania airport a busy airport?
In summer, yes, and for a few hours at a time rather than steadily. It handles a shade under four million passengers a year and almost all of that falls between May and October, in a building designed for a much smaller airport. Security queues build at the classic morning and late afternoon charter waves and there is not a lot of room airside once you are through. Arriving three hours before a July departure is not over-cautious, and in April or October the same terminal feels half empty.
Are there two airports in Chania?
No, there is one, and the confusion is understandable. Chania International Airport shares its runway and its patch of the Akrotiri peninsula with a Hellenic Air Force base at Souda Bay, which is also a NATO facility. Two operations, one airfield, one civil terminal. The nearest other airport is Heraklion, 155 km east.
Is there a bus from Chania airport into town?
Yes. A public bus runs between the terminal and the KTEL station in Chania, loosely timed around arrivals, and it is the cheapest way in by a wide margin. It is not a shuttle every ten minutes, and out of season it thins out considerably, so check the day's departures rather than assuming. Taxis wait outside arrivals on a fixed-tariff basis for the town run. For anywhere beyond Chania you change at the KTEL station.
What shops and food are there at Chania airport?
The essentials and no more. A duty free shop, a few cafes and snack bars, a newsagent and some gift stands, most of it past security in an airside area that was not built for four million people a year. On a busy summer afternoon the seating goes first and the counters have queues, so the sensible plan is to eat in Chania or at the hotel before the transfer. Out of season most of it is open but quiet between flights.
