A new era will be inaugurated for Olympic Airlines beginning October 1 as the formerly state-run and debt-ridden air carrier will be turned over to the Marfin Investment Group (MIG) following its recent privatisation, MIG chief executive Andreas Vgenopoulos said last week.
Vgenopoulos said the airline will start with 21 aircraft serving domestic and international routes — including New York, through a code-sharing agreement with Delta Air Lines.
“We want to make the company a regional leader and … if we have the opportunity, potentially one of the largest airlines in the world,” Vgenopoulos said.
Vgenopoulos pledged that the new company will provide excellent service, be highly competitive and execute 65 percent of the old OA flight itinerary in accordance with provisions set by the European Union.
It will also operate on less profitable routes and is looking at joining the SkyTeam alliance which includes Delta, Continental, Air France, KLM and Alitalia.
The SkyTeam global airline alliance carries out more than 16,000 flights daily to 169 countries.
Vgenopoulos said that Marfin would not turn down a public-private partnership scheme at Olympic Air should Greece’s new government so decide.
The main Opposition party, PASOK, has said that it would prefer some type of joint ownership scheme at Olympic if it wins the October national elections.
“As we had said when we acquired Olympic, that in the event of a change in government we would give the new government three months to renationalise Olympic if it so wished, our commitment still stands,” Vgenopoulos said in response to questions.
Vgenopoulos declined to estimate how deeply in the red the Olympic Airlines had sunk under state ownership.
The government has said that the old carrier had been losing $1.5 million a day.
“The operation of the old Olympic was the costliest hobby that every single Greek had in common — and without knowing,” Vgenopoulos said.