Olympic Airlines

Olympic Airlines, formerly Olympic Airways, was Greece's flag carrier, founded under Aristotle Onassis in 1957. Decades of state ownership, mounting debts and an illegal state-aid ruling ended in privatisation: most flights stopped on 29 September 2009, and the company closed fully on 31 December 2009.

How it started

Olympic's roots lie in the Greek state's attempt to rescue a patchwork of small carriers. According to Wikipedia, three airlines were based in Greece by 1947, and in 1951 poor finances led the state to merge them into TAE Greek National Airlines, flying DC-3s on domestic routes and a DC-4 to London. The government closed TAE in 1955. With no buyer found, it struck a deal in July 1956 with the shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, and on 6 April 1957 the company was renamed Olympic Airways.

Many Greeks distrusted flying, so Onassis ran short free DC-3 flights to show it was safe, as Greek City Times also notes.

The heyday

Onassis wanted the latest technology. Olympic took delivery of de Havilland Comet 4B jets in 1960 and set up an early codeshare-style arrangement with British European Airways. In 1966 the first Boeing 707-320, named "City of Athens", arrived and opened a non-stop Athens–New York service. Africa (Nairobi and Johannesburg) followed in 1968, Montreal and Chicago in 1969, and Melbourne in 1972. Two new Boeing 747-200s brought wide-bodies to the fleet, and a subsidiary, Olympic Aviation, served the islands.

The airline was known for style: cabin crew wore Pierre Cardin uniforms, and first-class passengers were given golden cutlery and a pianist, according to Wikipedia, which cites USA Today. Scheduled traffic grew from 85 million revenue passenger-kilometres in 1957 to about 7.9 billion in 1995. At the end it served 37 domestic and 32 other destinations.

What went wrong

• Loss of Onassis: his son Alexander died in a plane crash in January 1973. Onassis then sold all his shares to the state, and died in 1975.
• Political management: from the 1980s the airline suffered from management problems. Politicians and their families flew free or for token sums, and governments made Olympic carry the press at a 97 per cent discount. Strikes in 1986 added to the losses.
• Failed rescues: a restructuring that erased debts in the early 1990s did not hold, and a spell of management by British Airways' Speedwing International left debts larger still. A 2003 reorganisation moved flying into a renamed Macedonian Airlines (Olympic Airlines S.A.) and again wiped the slate.
• State aid: the European Commission declared nearly €700 million of state aid illegal in December 2005. Buyers would not take on the repayment, and talks with the Olympic Investors consortium collapsed. In 2007 the EU court cut a repayment to €130 million from €160 million, and Ryanair complained to the Commission.

The transport minister said in December 2007 that group debts totalled two billion euros. Even so, 2007 passengers rose to about 5.98 million, and in 2008 the airline cancelled many flights because it lacked aircraft.

The last flight

On 6 March 2009 the government announced the sale of the flight operations and technical base to Marfin Investment Group. Wikipedia reports that Olympic Airlines stopped flying most of its 69 destinations on 28 September 2009. It says the last flight was flight 424 from Toronto via Montreal, landing in Athens at 11:10 on 29 September 2009.

Sources differ on the end date. Wikipedia's infobox gives 29 September 2009, but the text says Olympic kept a few public service routes and flights to Cairo, Alexandria, Tel Aviv, Beirut and Belgrade, using the code OP and operated by Olympic Air on a wet-lease basis. These continued until the final deadline of 31 December 2009, agreed with the European Commission. A change of government in October delayed the tenders for the routes.

What happened next

The new Olympic Air began limited operations on 29 September 2009, with its first full flight on 1 October from Athens to Thessaloniki. It took the name, logo and IATA code, but was not a legal successor and took no former staff or assets directly. The new owners were to secure about 5,000 of the 8,500 jobs in the group. In February 2010 Olympic Air and Aegean Airlines announced a merger. The European Commission blocked it in January 2011 but approved Aegean's takeover in October 2013, and Olympic Air is now an Aegean subsidiary flying turboprops. Aegean succeeded Olympic as Greece's leading carrier. Greek Reporter described that deal as the end of an era.

Sources: Wikipedia: Olympic Airlines, Wikipedia: Olympic Air, Greek City Times: The History Of Olympic Airlines, Greek Reporter: Olympic Air: From Onassis Golden Age To Aegean Takeover