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The Greek government will sell Olympic Airlines to the Greek-Dubai company Marfin Investment Group after dynamic negotiations for the privatization of the national airline. The official announcement is expected on March 9 but all indications point that Kostas Karamanlis’ team chose MIG’s offer, which is equivalent to €177.2 million.

Actually the privatization drama of Olympic has long history and many times governments and investors were one step away from signing a deal but anyway this never happened. During the last few weeks the drama turned into an investors thriller. At the beginning of February the government announced that the tender for Olympic’s sale has finished without a success and none of the offers had the desired requirements. After the end of the tender MIG deposited it offer, which was a bit higher than the minimum price given by the government. Then, MIG president Andreas Vgenopoulos asked for a three week grace period, in order to be able to finalize the deal and the government granted it. Right before the three weeks passed, on Wednesday March 4, Aegean Airlines and Chrysler Aviation filed an offer simultaneously.

This development put Kostas Karamanlis’ government in a hard position and aggravated MIG president Andreas Vgenopoulos, who set an ultimatum to the government – you are either going to announce your decision until Friday March 6, when the grace period ends, or I will withdraw my offer. If you look at it objectively, the best offer was by Aegean Airlines – the offered price is the highest and also it is offered by an airline, which twice – in 2004 and 2008, has been chosen for airline of the year. It is developing fast and is financially in a very good state. The disadvantage of its offer though is that if it buys Olympic, it will become a monopolist on the Greek market. It is true that the company took the responsibility to freeze the ticket prices until the end of 2010 and also to give up part of the local flights at the expense of some new airline companies but percentages are percentages and they say “Monopoly”.

Chrysler Aviation’s offer is modest but there is not threat of monopoly. Andreas Vgenopoulos’ offer comes somewhere in the middle. His main disadvantage is that MIG does not have experience in the aviation business, which is very specific and requires different preparation and different business approach. How important this is, we all know in Bulgaria, because we will not forget what happened to Balkan Airlines after it went to the hands of Gad Zeevi. Andreas Vgenopoulos on the other hand is good at other things – he claimed he will keep all Olympic employees, which are about 5000 people. Supporting him are all Olympic pilots, who threatened to riot if the government sells the company to Aegean Airlines.

The Greek National carrier was founded on April 6, 1957 by the legendary Aristotle Onassis. Its first flight was from Athens to Thessaloniki with a Douglas DC-3 airplane. During the 60s the airline becomes the fastest growing one in the world, many celebrities use its flight and the uniforms of the staff carried the signatures of Coco Chanel and Pierre Cardin. In 1975 Olympic becomes a public company. After 2000 it becomes a burden for the state budget and its privatization stays as a rotten fruit on the government’s agenda.

And so, from Monday March 9, Andreas Vgenopoulos will be in charge of Olympic. Vgenopoulos has a degree in law and is a man with clearly expressed ambitions and interests. Undoubtedly he will transfer his style in the development and image of the Greek national carrier. Whether success will be on his side, we will see in the future.