Funding first for Athens' new Olympic airport Available to Purchase

International visitors to the Athens Olympics in August 2004 should enjoy a relatively congestion-free journey thanks to Europe's first privately financed airport on a greenfield site. The £1·3 billion Eleftherios Venizelos airport opened at Spata last year, replacing the old, notoriously overcrowded Hellinikon airport in the Athens suburbs. With twin runways capable of simultaneous operation, it will eventually be able to handle up to 50 million passengers a year. This paper describes the planning, design and construction of this new state-of-the-art airport and in particular the steps taken to control noise.