Ok – this one was completely off the radar. The New Olympic Airlines and Aegean Airlines are to merge to make a “New New” Olympic Air.
Olympic air was built out of the remains of Olympic Airways (and the sorry saga behind that). Aegan has had a health growth over the past few years.
Alas, Greece and a lot of companies in that zone have suffered badly during the recession, so a merger of equals will have the obvious effects (Sorry, I’m going to use the S word) synergies (translation – dumping of crap parts of the two businesses and saving money), and will hopefully allow the new company to survive in the current and future environments.
The merger is of course – up for EU Competition Commission Approval
So what does that mean for Aegean’s entry into Star Alliance? This is very good question. Certainly a “Strengthened” Aegan is a good thing for Star, but this in turn begs another questions:
- Does Star wish to be associated with the damaged Olympic band?
- Is Star turning in an alliance of basket case airlines? (BMI, Austrian, SAS, Brussels, Air India to name a few…)
I’m not sure on either front – depending on approvals and the final decisions by Star Alliance management. Suffice to say, there is thinking to be done in the weeks and months ahead as this progresses.
