page_title: Olympic Airlines
section_title: Olympic Airways to Olympic Airlines
hierarchical_section_title: Olympic Airlines / History / Olympic Airways to Olympic Airlines
caption_attribution_description: This impressive flight machine was one of the first 747s ever delivered in the history of aviation. It once carried hundreds, from common people, immigrants, to politicians and celebrities across the oceans to the US and Australia, linking our country with the outside world. it now stands in a corner of the runway with its engines removed and incapable of flying evermore. Too sad that it is exposed to various vandals, either making graffiti on it or just damaging the fuselage and the landing equipment.
context_page_description: Olympic Airlines, formerly named Olympic Airways for at least four decades, was the flag carrier airline of Greece. The airline's head office was located in Athens. The airline operated services to 37 domestic destinations and to 32 destinations world-wide. The airline's main base was at Athens International Airport, with hubs at Thessaloniki International Airport, "Macedonia", Heraklion International Airport, "Nikos Kazantzakis" and Rhodes International Airport, "Diagoras". Olympic Airlines also owned a base at London Heathrow International Airport. By December 2007, the airline employed about 8,500 staff.
  Olympic Airlines was also accredited by IATA with the IOSA for their safety practices.
  On 6 March 2009, the Greek State announced it had reached an agreement to sell the flight operations, ground handling operations and technical base of the group to Marfin Investment Group, the largest Greek investment fund, thus ending 35 years of state ownership.
  On 29 September 2009 Olympic Airlines ceased all operations and most flights. Olympic Air, the new airline formed from privatisation, commenced flights.
context_section_description: By December 2003, the Olympic Airways Group of Companies owned Olympic Airways (Ολυμπιακή Αεροπορία), Olympic Aviation (Ολυμπιακή Αεροπλοϊα), Macedonian Airlines (Mακεδονικές Αερογραμμές), Galileo Hellas (Γαλιλλαίος Ελλάς), Olympic Fuel Company (Ολυμπιακή Εταιρεία Καυσίμων), and Olympic Into-Plane Company. Olympic Catering had been sold a few months earlier. A company formed in the 80s called Olympic AirTours (Ολυμπιακή Τουριστική) had already been transformed into Macedonian Airlines.
  Very soon the losses became excessive, so in 2003 the government restructured the Olympic Airways Group of Companies. The subsidiary, Macedonian Airlines S.A., was renamed Olympic Airlines S.A. and took over the flight operations of Olympic Airways, erasing at the same time all of the airline's debts. The remaining group companies, except for Olympic Aviation (Olympic Airways, Olympic Into-Plane Company, Olympic Fuel Company, Olympic Airways Handling and the Olympic Airways Technical Base), merged and formed a new company, called Olympic Airways - Services S.A.. In December 2004, the Greek government decided to privatize Olympic Airlines, but the sale process ended in failure as none of the buyers were eager to repay the Greek state almost 700 million euro in state aid, which was later declared illegal by the European Commission in December 2005.
  In 2005, the Greek Government looked for potential buyers to privatise OA. In April of that year, a short list of potential buyers was submitted that included Aegean Airlines, German LCC DBA and a Greek-American consortium called Olympic Investors.  Shortly afterwards Aegean Airlines pulled out, followed by DBA. In September 2005, the Greek government signed a non-binding agreement with Olympic Investors to buy the airline.  In an interview, Olympic Investors stated that they were backed by York Capital with 6.5 billion dollars and assured that OA's workers would not lose their jobs. They stated that OA should continue to operate as an integrated company and that they were not interested in buying just parts of OA.  By the end of the year, the offer fell through because the huge fine imposed on the airline by the European Commission had not been dealt with.
  According to Greek media, the government planned to relaunch the company in late 2006.  The code name for the project was Pantheon Airways. In June 2006, Greek media reported that Sabre Aviation Consulting Services was contracted by the Greek government to find investors and develop a business plan for an airline to replace Olympic Airlines, aiming to begin operations in autumn 2006. Under this plan the government would be a minority shareholder of the new carrier, which would be run as a private airline. The planned re-launch date passed without anything happening, and the plan was temporarily frozen.
  In 2006 O.A. was thrown a life line, when the courts ordered Greece to repay them almost 564 million euro owed to the airline. The money was owed to O.A. from legally subsidised routes to Greek islands and costs of the relocation to the new airport. The money would be used to pay back part of the State aid declared illegal by the European Commission in December 2005. Olympic Airlines redesigned their website to introduce their e-ticket service, launched on 31 July 2007, in response to the surge of online booking and online check-ins. The e-ticket service introduction by Electronic Data Systems meant Olympic abolished their old "Hermes" booking system, which had served the company for more than two decades. As of November 2007, the e-ticket service is available on all European and International routes, and on 19 of the airline's 37 domestic routes.
  On 12 September 2007, the Luxembourg-based EU court ruled that Olympic should repay an amount of money less than what the EU Commission had ordered. This amount included unpaid taxes on fuel and spare parts, as well as unpaid fees to Athens International Airport. The new amount owed by Olympic was €130 million, as compared with the original €160 million. On that same day Olympic Investors, the Greek-Ame
caption: An Olympic Airways Boeing 747-200 with its brand blanked out
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