Olympic Air (formerly Olympic Airlines, airline code OA) is the major airline of Greece, based at Athens International airport, with smaller bases at Thessaloniki and Rhodes.

Ownership

Olympic Airlines was formed from the shell of the bankrupt state-owned Olympic Airways in December 2003. Olympic Airways, originally formed in 1957 by shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis; and a sister company, Olympic Aviation, was put under the management of a subsidiary charter company Macedonian Airlines, becoming a new state-owned entity.

Attempts to privatize Olympic Airlines floundered for six years due to arguments with the European Commission about state aid used to prop up the carrier, which rivals claimed was illegal. The matter was eventually resolved and Greek company Marfin Investment Group took over Olympic Airlines in March 2009.

Towards the end of 2009 a new airline emerged, Olympic Air, which took over much of Olympic Airlines' flight operations. The complete transition of operations from Olympic Airlines to Olympic Air was held up by the Greek government elections. Olympic Airlines ceased to exist on December 31 2009, with all operations transfered over to Olympic Air.

In February 2010 Olympic Air and its main rival Aegean Airlines announced a merger. The Agean name will eventually be dropped in favour of the former brand with the full integration due by late 2011. The combined airline will have a fleet of 64 aircraft and will operate short and medium-haul routes.

For more on this please follow links below to the Business Traveller report.

Route Network

Olympic Air serves most of the major European capitals and has an extensive domestic network among the Greek islands.

• To see where Olympic Air flies, click here.

Other Information

• For Olympic Air's Wikipedia page, click here.

• For details of Olympic's Travelair Club frequent flyer programme, click here.

To check fares visit olympicair.com

From BusinessTraveller.com

• Olympic Air and Aegean to merge (23/02/2010)