Olympic Airways

Olympic Airways to Olympic 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 failed as none of the buyers was eager to repay the Greek state almost 700 million euros in state aid, which was later declared illegal by the European Commission in December 2005.