Greek airlines merge

GREEK carriers Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air are to merge. Following approval from the European Competition Commission, both names and logos will be used in parallel “following the necessary transition and adjustment period”. After that, the combined company will use the name and logo Olympic Air and the Aegean brand will become defunct.

Olympic Handling and Olympic Engineering will become 100 per cent subsidiaries of the new company.

The main shareholders of both groups will have an equal shareholding in the new carrier.

Theodoros Vassilakis, chairman of Aegean, said: “The relative size of our competitors within the European Union necessitates the joining of the two main Greek airlines, to ensure the long-term development and viability of the two airlines and protect the levels of employment in the sector.”

Olympic’s chairman, Andreas Vgenopoulos, added: “The prevailing conditions in the Greek economy, as well as in the aviation sector, dictate the combination of forces in order to maintain competitive customer prices, protect levels of employment and increase our competitiveness at a European level.

“The merger of Olympic and Aegean serves all of those objectives and at the same time preserves and strengthens the Olympic brand name, an inherent piece of our national tradition making all Greeks very proud.”