Brussels blocked Aegean's takeover of Olympic, then approved it two years later
In 2011 European regulators stopped Aegean Airlines from merging with Olympic Air, warning the pair would control more than 90 percent of Greek domestic flying. Two years on, with Greece in deep crisis, the same Commission waved a near-identical deal through, reasoning that Olympic would collapse soon anyway. Aegean became the country's undisputed flag carrier.
Aegean began in 1995, taking over from Aegean Aviation and flying VIP charters in its own Learjets. Scheduled service started in May 1999 with two Avro RJ100 jets linking Athens to Heraklion and Thessaloniki, and Air Greece was absorbed that December. By 2009 it carried 6.6 million passengers, overtaking Olympic Airlines for the first time, and in June 2010 it joined Star Alliance.
The first merger plan, agreed in February 2010, would actually have kept the Olympic name and retired the Aegean brand. The Commission's veto in January 2011 argued that fares would rise for most of the six million people flying to and from Athens each year, and dismissed an offer to give up airport slots because Greek airports were not congested. A fresh bid in October 2012 won approval on 9 October 2013, and both names still fly separately today.
The lean years left a mark. Losses ran from 2010 to 2012 as Greek tourism suffered, with traffic dipping to 6.1 million even as planes flew fuller, before a return to profit in 2013. When Cyprus Airways went bankrupt, Aegean set up a base in Larnaca to fill the gap. During the pandemic it took a 120 million euro state loan, repaid in full by March 2023.
The fleet is now all Airbus. An order placed in June 2018 for 30 A320neo family jets was later stretched to 50, including long-range A321LRs with lie-flat seats for Gulf routes. The livery changed too: the old tail showed two seagulls in front of the sun, while the newer design arranges two gulls of different sizes into one larger bird.
Source: Aegean Airlines
