Athens airport transfers, taxis, Uber and the metro, honestly compared

Athens airport sits about thirty three kilometres from the centre, which is further out than most people expect. You have five real options and the right one depends less on money than on what you are carrying and what time you land.

The metro

Line three runs from the terminal to Syntagma and Monastiraki in roughly forty minutes, and trains leave about every half hour. It is cheap, it is clean and it is the best option if you are travelling light and arriving in daylight.

The catch is the hours. This is not a twenty four hour service. The first train out of the airport is around half past six in the morning and the last is around half past eleven at night, so land after that and the metro is simply not an option. It is also poor with large cases or small children, since the last stretch to most hotels is on foot over marble pavements and steps.

The bus, and the reason it matters

The X95 runs from outside arrivals to Syntagma Square for about six euros, and crucially it runs twenty four hours a day: every fifteen to twenty five minutes through the day, roughly hourly overnight. Journey time is forty to ninety minutes depending on traffic. That night service is the point. The metro stops and the X95 does not, so if you land at three in the morning on a budget this is the only public option there is. The X96 does the same job out to Piraeus for an early ferry.

The taxi, and the fare you should insist on

The fare from the airport into central Athens is fixed by law. Forty euros between five in the morning and midnight, fifty five euros between midnight and five. That is the whole price, including luggage, tolls and the airport fee, and every licensed driver is obliged to honour it. Know it before you get in, because a minority of drivers will try for more, and the ones who do are relying on you not knowing the number. Say the flat rate, politely and clearly. The rank is outside arrivals and runs all night.

One caveat. The flat fare covers central Athens. A hotel in the outer suburbs or a run to Piraeus is metered instead, so agree roughly what it will come to before you set off.

Uber, which is not what you think

Uber works in Athens and the ordinary app summons it, but it is taxi only. UberX does not exist here, so what arrives is a licensed yellow taxi on the same regulated fare, plus a small booking fee. Bolt and FREENOW do exactly the same thing. The advantage is not price, it is that the fare is shown in the app before you accept and paid through it, which ends the argument before it starts. There is a dedicated meeting point at the airport, at Gate four. The one thing to watch is that at peak times and late at night all three apps can show no drivers at all, at which point the rank is faster.

The private transfer

Someone is inside the terminal with your name, they take the bags, the price is agreed and the car fits your party. It costs more than a taxi and it buys the one thing that matters after a long flight, which is not having to make any further decisions. The obvious answer for families, for late arrivals, and for anyone connecting straight to a ferry.

We run private transfers across Athens, the islands and the mainland at a fixed price, quoted per car rather than per person, with the boat and flight times built in.