Flights to Zante

There are 35 separate summer routes direct from the UK to Zante’s dinky Dionysios Solomos (or sometimes Zakynthos International) Airport (ZTH), making getting to the island almost as effortless as lying on one of its perfect beaches. The average flight time? A piffling three hours and 30 minutes.

Gatwick (LGW) and Stansted (STN) are the main departure points, with easyJet and TUI flying direct to Zante from both, and Jet2 solely from Stansted. TUI also has flights from Luton (LTN), while British Airways uses Heathrow (LHR).

All these routes are summer-only, which tends to mean they operate between April and October – usually several times per week. EasyJet’s service from Gatwick has the longest window, running from March to November.

Between them, easyJet, TUI and Jet2.com also depart to Zante from a dozen other UK terminals: Belfast (BFS), Birmingham (BHX), Bristol (BRS), Cardiff (CAR), Doncaster Sheffield (DSA), East Midlands (EMA), Edinburgh (EDI), Glasgow (GLA), Leeds Bradford (LBA), Liverpool (LIV), Manchester (MAN) and Newcastle (NCL).

Of those, Birmingham, Bristol, East Midlands, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle have the highest amount of departures per week. Again, all are seasonal, summer-only services.

So much competition among rival airlines means that prices are uniformly cheap, especially if you book in advance. While TUI give first priority to package-holiday customers, one-way fares with easyJet and Jet2.com are often under £100. Fares in May and September are always cheaper, outside of the bank holidays.

Travelling to Zante in winter (from around mid-November to mid-March) requires changing planes in Athens (ATH). From there, services with Greek carrier Olympic Air run to Zante year-round. This option isn’t cheap, and the journey takes almost five hours, excluding the time you spend changing at Athens.

Alternatively, you can get a 5-hour bus from Athens – boarding at Terminal A on Kiffissou Street, which is connected to the airport by shuttle bus X93 – to the Peloponnese port of Kyllini and then the 90-minute ferry onto Zante Town. Ferry time are listed here.

Another way to see Zante is aboard an Ionian Islands cruise. These commonly dock for a day in Zante Town, before moving on to Kefalonia. Yacht charters also offer the same experiences on a more bespoke basis.

It’s also possible to island-hop around the rest of Ionian islands by ferry, and stay on other islands as well as Zante. From the small northern port of Agios Nikolaos, summer-only ferries link Zante to Kefalonia, and from there services go onto Ithaca and Lefkada. Zante to Kefalonia can be done as a day-trip; travelling any further will require an overnight stay.

British visitors need only a valid passport for the duration of their visit to enter Zante, and Greece as a whole, and can stay for up to three months. These rules may slightly alter as result of Brexit, so check the FCO’s Greece travel advice page before travelling.