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Forty airports will be included in the law for rehabilitation and restructuring of the civil aviation authority in Greece, which are expected to bring around two billion Euros in the long run. The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure announced that the state airports will be labeled in two indicators - the volume of passenger traffic and geographic position. The inventory of their assets will soon be completed and following will be the creation of joint stock companies in which the state will own 100% of the shares. After that will then be determined the necessary changes, which must take place in each one of the airports or group of airports in a company. 

Even though the companies which will be created will be owned by the state, their management and operation will be given to private companies that will have a minority share. Opportunities for expansion, reconstruction, maintenance and operation of airports will be granted on a concession to private owners, from whom the public sector expects long-term receivables. Successful example of cooperation between public and private sectors that will serve as a model for making concessions is the capital airport in Spata. According to data provided by the Ministry, the concession contracts will be flexible and will include a clause, which will allow for extension of period use, changing conditions, if necessary, and fixing the amount of airport charges. 

The Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Dimitris Repa stressed that private investors will take over the management, development, maintenance and operation of airports, but ownership will remain public. The two airports, which will not participate in this program are the new Athens airport Elevteros Venizelos and the airport next to the Cretan city Katselio. 

Meanwhile the drama around the merger of the two largest airlines in Greece – Olympic Airways and Aegean - came to its second stage. After a long and prolonged study of the proposal, in early 2011, the European Competition Commission ruled against the merger of the two air transport companies. This decision seems to have dissatisfied the head of Marfin Investment Group (MIG) Andreas Vgenopoulos, so he announced his intention to take matters to the European Court, in order to challenge the decision of the Competition Committee. 

And while the two owners of Olympic and Aegean made plans on how to achieve their goal and merge the two companies, they started splitting the local and international destinations. Olympic representatives announced that the airline suspends all flights from Athens to Vienna, Brussels and London, because they want to strengthen the company's presence in the Balkan region. Aegean, on the other hand, holds a major share of domestic flights and less foreign ones - mainly to other Mediterranean countries. The problem is that towards most destinations only one of the two companies offers flights and so ticket prices have risen significantly in the last year. 

In this sense, the two MEPs from New Democracy Costas Poupakis and Giorgios Koumoutsakos expressed serious concerns about the "silent merger” of the two companies, regardless of the waiver issued by Brussels. The MEPs submitted a request in writing to the European Commission, regarding the legality and fair competitiveness of the destination restructuring. Also they inquired about other good practices which can be applied, known from other countries to safeguard the consumer rights and to prevent monopolization of air transport in the country. 

Aegean and Olympic hold about 95% of all destinations served in Greece and everything indicates that their owners will not give up easily on their plans to "strengthen" the Greek air transport. To be continued.