Olympic Air leaves Western Europe; becomes regional airline
Since its creation in 2009, Olympic Air has gradually pulled out of Western European markets and the recent decision to drop Amsterdam services means the end of the airline’s operations to Greece’s ‘old’ EU friends.
When Olympic Air drops its route between its Athens (ATH) hub and Amsterdam (AMS) at the end of the winter scheduling season in a month’s time, it marks the end of the airline’s presence in the Western European market.
The route remains operated by KLM, which flies twice-daily but currently plans to reduce frequencies to daily in summer, as well as Air France-KLM’s low-cost subsidiary Transavia.com, which operates three times weekly, increasing to daily at the end of April.
It is now two years since the merger between the Greek carriers Olympic and Aegean was proposed and a year since it was rejected. While Aegean benefits through its Star Alliance membership from connectivity at its partner hubs in Western Europe, unaligned Olympic has been left to fend for itself.
Since the new Olympic Air was created in 2009, the airline has gradually moved out of Western European markets, becoming a niche airline in south-eastern Europe and eastern Mediterranean region. The following table shows the timeline of the country markets dropped by Olympic.
| Market dropped | Month dropped |
|---|---|
| Italy | October 2010 |
| Austria | March 2011 |
| Belgium | March 2011 |
| UK | March 2011 |
| France | May 2011 |
| Netherlands | March 2012 |
| Source: OAG Schedules iNET | |
Meanwhile, the airline has added two country markets; Serbia (Belgrade flights launched in March 2011) and Israel (Tel Aviv services due to launch in March 2012).
When the 2,200-kilometre Amsterdam route is dropped, the new Tel Aviv service will be Olympic’s longest at only 1,200 kilometres.
Thanks for another great analysis, but you may overlooked a key element in your report. OA recently commenced codeshares with KLM beyond AMS to/from UK, Scandinavian and German markets:
– dep. 14:15 Stockholm OA 8515 Olympic Air
– dep. 14:20 Athens OA 0152 Olympic Air
– dep. 14:20 Oslo OA 8543 Olympic Air
– dep. 14:50 Glasgow OA 8545 Olympic Air
– dep. 14:55 Copenhagen OA 8527 Olympic Air
– dep. 15:15 Gothenburg OA 8559 Olympic Air
– dep. 15:20 Edinburgh OA 8585 Olympic Air
– dep. 16:15 Hamburg OA 8569 Olympic Air
– dep. 16:20 Manchester OA 8595 Olympic Air
The map is an old one dated before May 2004, when 10 Central and Eastern European countries joined the EU.
When reporting about news and changes of routes on a daily basis, this map should have been updated looong ago.
The use of an old map of EU15 is deliberate and part of the message conveyed in the article.