Patient transfers from the Greek islands, by island

The Hellenic Air Force (HAF) and the Hellenic Coast Guard each publish a daily bulletin with one line per mission: which aircraft or vessel, from where, to where. I found no published totals by island. I downloaded all the bulletins from January 2022 to September 2026, 6,080 aircraft missions and 7,030 vessel trips, and found which Greek island each one started from.

In the three full years 2023-2025, an average of 2,734 patient transfers a year left the Greek islands, about 7.5 a day. On islands with fewer than 1,000 permanent residents there are 17.9 transfers per 1,000 residents a year. On islands with 20,000 residents or more, 1.7.

How many transfers there are each year

In 2022, 22 days of bulletins are missing from the HAF website, which is why the figures are lower. From 2023 the numbers stay almost flat: about 1,240 aircraft missions and 1,490 vessel trips a year. 2026 is running higher. From January to September there were 988 HAF missions from an island, against 911 in the same period of 2025 (+8.5%), and 1,255 Coast Guard trips, against 1,163 (+7.9%).

One aircraft mission can pick up patients from two or three islands. In 2023-2025 this happened on 1,105 of the 3,722 missions from an island, almost one in three. That is why I count missions per island and not patients: for mixed missions the bulletin does not say how many patients came from each island.

Per resident, the smaller the island the higher the rate

In absolute numbers Corfu is first, with 220.3 transfers a year, followed by Paros with 199.3 and Kos with 197.7. Per resident the order changes completely. I split the islands into four categories by permanent residents in the 2021 Census:

Ithaca has 2,862 residents and 54.7 transfers a year, 19.1 per 1,000. Kefalonia has 36,064 residents and 63.3 transfers, 1.8 per 1,000. And of the 159 trips from Ithaca in 2023-2025, 142 went to Kefalonia, all except one to Sami. For the small island, the transfer is often only half the journey, as far as the large island next door.

The ranking of the islands

The chart starts at 1,000 residents, because on very small islands a few trips make a large rate: Kastos has 40 residents and 7 trips a year, which is 175.0 per 1,000. All the islands are in the table at the end. Among islands with 1,000 residents or more, Skopelos is first, with 115.3 Coast Guard trips a year to Volos. Zakynthos is last, with 0.7.

By island group

The Sporades send almost all their patients by vessel to Volos. In the North Aegean, 85.5% of residents live on Lesvos, Chios and Samos, which have 0.9, 1.0 and 2.2 transfers per 1,000. Gavdos and Elafonisos are alone in their group, so they appear only in the full table.

By aircraft or by vessel

The airport mostly decides the means. Islands with an airport and a distant hospital send almost all their patients by aircraft. Islands without an airport send them by vessel.

The middle of the table is the Cyclades around Syros. Paros, Naxos and Mykonos have an airport, but most of their vessel trips go to the hospital on Syros: 404 of the 425 from Paros in 2023-2025, 176 of the 179 from Mykonos. The private health units of the Cyclades, with their revenue, are in the search for activity code (KAD) 86 in the Cyclades regional unit.

Where they end up

Air transfers from an island end up mostly in Athens. Of the 3,722 missions in 2023-2025, 2,486 (66.8%) had Athens among their destinations, almost always Elefsina airport. Next come Rhodes with 600 (16.1%), where the Dodecanese go, Heraklion on Crete with 427 (11.5%), Ioannina with 318 (8.5%) and Patras with 201 (5.4%). One mission can have two destinations, which is why the shares add up to more than 100%.

At sea the main destination is Syros. Of the 4,481 Coast Guard trips in 2023-2025, 1,354 (30.2%) ended there. Volos received 727 (16.2%), almost all from Skiathos, Skopelos and Alonissos, and Piraeus 363 (8.1%), all from Aegina and Agistri. Corfu sends by vessel to Igoumenitsa, Thasos to Keramoti, Samothrace to Alexandroupoli.

Summer

If transfers were spread evenly, the four months June to September would have 33.3%. They have 44.5% of Coast Guard trips and 39.2% of HAF missions. August has an average of 194 vessel trips, December 82. On some small islands summer weighs even more: on Agistri 67.6% of transfers happen from June to September, on Alonissos 55.2%, on Ithaca 54.3%, on Skopelos 53.4%.

The aircraft of the Niarchos donation

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation donated two AW-109 Trekker helicopters and two King Air 350 aircraft for air ambulance work in 2021, and one King Air 360C in May 2024. The Hellenic Air Force flies them.

The first count found zero donation missions in 2022 and 2023. The bulletins write "(Ιδρ. Σταύρος Νιάρχος)" (Stavros Niarchos Fdn.) next to the aircraft only from 15 July 2024, while the same aircraft had been flying since 2021. After 15/07/2024, types B-350C, B-360C and AW-109S carry the label on all missions except 8 out of 1,826. So for the years without a label I counted by aircraft type.

In 2026 almost three in four HAF air ambulance missions used a donated aircraft. Missions with the other aircraft (C-27J, C-130, Super Puma) fell from 352 in January to September 2025 to 273 in the same period of 2026.

All the islands

The full table, with all the islands that have their own population in the Census, except those I explain in the methodology. The figures are the average of 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Methodology

Sources: the daily HAF bulletins "Deployment of HAF personnel and assets" and the section "Patient transfers" in the Coast Guard bulletins, from 1 January 2022 to 30 September 2026, retrieved on 2 October 2026. Population: permanent population in the 2021 Census of ELSTAT, the Hellenic Statistical Authority, by municipal unit. For each island it is the sum of the municipal units that cover it.

From the HAF bulletins I kept the air ambulance missions, including those flown for EKAB, the Greek National Emergency Aid Centre. I left out search and rescue missions and 27 missions from ships at sea. In the Coast Guard data, 83 trips did not start from an island, 66 of them from Mount Athos. I joined the names of islands and ports in one lookup table: the Greek forms «της Τήνου», «ν. Τήνου» and «Τήνο» are one island, Pisaetos and Vathy are Ithaca, Koukounaries is Skiathos. I kept out of the per-resident ranking Crete, which has university hospitals, Evia and Lefkada, which connect to the mainland by bridge, and Salamina, Poros, Spetses, Antiparos and Meganisi. These five have a ferry that crosses in a few minutes and no transfers in the bulletins, so the source does not see them. Patients in the HAF bulletins differ on average by 1.8% from the monthly totals that HAF itself publishes, over 48 months where a comparison exists.

I did not count patients who leave in an EKAB ambulance on board the scheduled ferry, because they do not go through the Coast Guard. The Ministry of Health gives 1,649 to 1,910 such sea transfers a year for the whole country in 2021-2025, with no breakdown by island, and they are missing mainly from islands with frequent ferry service. Also missing are air transfers by the Army and the Navy, 12.9% of patients in the 11 months of 2025 that GEETHA, the Hellenic National Defence General Staff, published, and private helicopters. So the real number of transfers is higher than the table shows. The denominator is permanent residents, while transfers also include visitors, so on tourist islands the rate comes out higher than it is for residents. With a threshold of 500, 1,000 or 2,000 residents, and with 2025 alone instead of the three-year average, Skopelos stays in the top five in every variant. From second place down the order changes from year to year: Ios has 20.4 in the average and 9.6 in 2025. The order of the four size categories does not change with any of the thresholds I tested.