The board below lists outbound flights from Thessaloniki Airport (SKG) with scheduled times, gates and status. Two figures on it decide your morning: the terminal, because check-in desks sit in different buildings, and the status, because a delay published here reaches you long before the boarding gate does.
Allow 40 minutes by bus or 30 by taxi for the 13 km from the city centre, then add whatever head start your airline’s check-in cut-off requires. Fares and journey times below were checked in August 2026.
Which terminal do you leave from at SKG?
The one printed on your boarding pass, confirmed by the departure screens. Thessaloniki "Makedonia" Airport runs two buildings, T1 and T2, and the distinction matters only at check-in and bag drop.
T2, opened in 2021, is the larger and newer building: modern check-in halls, the main security screening, most boarding gates, and the bulk of the shops and duty-free. T1, the refurbished original, handles the remaining desks and gates. Departures sit on the level above arrivals in both.
Once you clear security the two merge into one airside zone, so a last-minute gate change between buildings costs a walk, not a missed flight. Airlines do get reassigned between terminals from time to time, which is why the screens beat any printout from last week. Our terminals guide breaks down which carriers usually sit where.
When should you leave the city centre?
Work backwards from the flight time rather than forwards from breakfast. Your airline sets the check-in cut-off, so the only part this page can pin down is the travel leg: about 40 minutes on bus 1X, about 30 minutes by taxi across roughly 13 km.
The bus needs more slack than its timetable suggests. Departures run every 20 to 30 minutes through the day, so a bus that pulls away as you reach the stop can cost half an hour before the ride even starts.
| Leaving from the centre | Journey | Slack to add | Leave by, for a 10:00 flight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bus 1X | About 40 min | 30 min (next departure) | 06:50 |
| Bus 1N (overnight) | Over an hour | 60 min (roughly hourly) | 05:30 |
| Blue taxi | About 30 min | 15 min (rank wait) | 07:15 |
| Pre-booked car | About 30 min | None, it waits for you | 07:30 |
The leave-by column assumes you want to be at the terminal two hours before departure. That is a traveller’s convention rather than an airport rule, so shift every row if your airline asks for more, or if you are checking bags in the August peak. Full fares and stop details sit on our airport bus page and taxi page.
What happens if your departure is delayed?
Check the board before you change anything. Status here updates from the same feed the airline uses, so a slip usually shows up before staff can announce it at the desk.
A delay at SKG has one comfort and one catch. The airport works around the clock, so a night-time slip does not leave you locked outside a closed building. The catch sits on the other side: public transport back into the city thins out overnight to bus 1N at roughly one an hour, and blue taxis switch to a higher tariff between 00:00 and 05:00, around €35 instead of the daytime €25.
Decision rule: a delay under two hours, stay airside where the shops and cafés are. A delay past midnight with a rebooked morning flight, and the arithmetic favours a nearby airport hotel over two taxi rides into town and back.
Where do you check in and what comes after?
At the desks in your assigned terminal, one level above arrivals. Bag drop closes before the gate does, and closing times are airline-specific rather than airport-wide.
After security both terminals feed a shared airside area, with the larger share of seating, food and duty-free on the T2 side. Passengers who clear security in T1 can walk across to use them.
Anyone driving themselves needs the car parks rather than the kerb: short stays outside the terminals, longer options further out, all covered on our parking page. If you are still choosing a flight, our flights hub lists which airlines serve the airport and where they fly.
How busy is the airport when you fly?
Busy enough that the summer peak changes the arithmetic above. Traffic reached 7,982,798 passengers in 2025, a record and 8.2% above 2024, which puts SKG third in Greece behind Athens and Heraklion.
That load is not spread evenly. Summer weekends carry the heaviest flows, and a Saturday morning in August fills the check-in hall in a way a Tuesday in November does not. Fraport Greece, which has held the concession since 2017, built T2 partly to absorb exactly those peaks.
Practical consequence: in July and August, add to the slack column rather than trusting the median. Outside the season, the taxi row is usually generous.
How we checked
Journey times, fares and terminal layout were consulted in August 2026. Flight status comes from the Avionio board widget embedded above. Bus lines 1X and 1N follow the network published by OSETH, the regional transport authority for Central Macedonia, with buses operated by OASTH. Terminal and passenger figures follow Fraport Greece, and the airport’s own flight list stays the primary source for an individual flight.
Two numbers here are deliberately soft. Taxi fares are metered, so €25 by day and €35 overnight describe typical runs into the centre rather than a tariff. Check-in cut-offs belong to each airline, so this page gives the travel leg and leaves the cut-off to your booking confirmation instead of inventing a figure.
