Focus On – Heraklion Airport part 2 – its appearances in the series

Heraklion Airport appears a few times throughout the series, and in this article we’ll take a brief look at those appearances.

In the first episode, the opening shot sets the scene: a Boeing 737 lands at a foreign airport, an Englishman alights and travels into a City that has been developed extensively since his last visit. This is our introduction to Alan Haldane and his return to Crete.

The airport is seen next at the end of episode 3, when Haldane takes Lorna Matthews to catch her flight home. This time, we see her depart in a Boeing 720 – a version of the popular Boeing 707. In this episode, her flight to Crete was paid for by Matheos who wanted to play a trick on Haldane by getting him to cheat on Annika and involve himself with Lorna, a woman he’d once had an affair with, instead.

The airport’s next appearance is in episode 4, when Anthony Viglis brings his Grandfather back to Crete to bury him in the village of Dafnai. In the first scenes, just like in episode 1, we see another Boeing 737 landing and Viglis alighting from the aircraft. Then we see the coffin being removed from the hold, and taken to a hangar within the airport boundary so that it can be checked, whereupon Viglis states that the formalities were completed in Athens. As of yet, I have not found which warehouse or hangar this was filmed in, and fear I may never get to do so as the airport will stop being used in a couple of years’ time.

Our brief look at the airport’s appearances concludes in episode 6. In this instance, Duncan Neve / Bernard Kingsley is taken home by Det. Chief Inspector Cooper of Leicester CID after Kingsley gives himself up after being on the run for many years. Haldane and the Major observe the departure from the terminal’s balcony.

Speaking to Andrew Morgan, he says that a small crew was allowed to be airside and film arrivals and departures from beside the runway. This crew consisted of a camera operator and sound man as well as the director. He asked pilots beforehand whereabouts down the runway the aircraft would touch down or lift off from, in order to set the camera in the best possible position. He also tells of when he asked one of the pilots to make an especially ‘spirited’ departure so that it looked good for the camera. The filming of all aircraft was done on the same day.