Olympic Airlines - Reliability???
 

Trying to book flights from Athens to Santorini for our family of 6 in July. In searching for flights, I am finding a significant difference between Aegean and Olympic airlines prices. The Olympic prices are at least half or even a third of the Aegean price, depending on the flight.

My question is....how reliable is Olympic airlines these days? I have read several older posts which talks about how unreliable Olympic was prior to the new owners.

We could save a significant amount going with Olympic but if it means were taking a significant risk with flight cancellations then I am not sure if it is worth it.

Any help is much appreciated.

Olympic Airlines is no longer Airlines -- it is Olympic Air. It has been bought by a tdop private investor with deep pockets, and the prospect is for better equipment and service. Of course the older service was unreliable... it was facing bankruptcy and putting nothing into maintenance. Now it's a fresh start.

Since the past semi-govt ownership had earned such a bad rep, Aegean has stepped in. And in July (high Season) they can get top dollar. The only bargains come if you can buy when they have "promotional pricing" ... and they don't do that usually for High Season. And if you have 6 people to buy tickets for, my instinct would be -- go for it with Olympic. It DOEs require you to keep track of Olympic on the internet... news of service, feedback from users, etc. That's part of the bargain, when getting a bargain.

>>Of course the older service was unreliable... it was facing bankruptcy <i>and putting nothing into maintenance</i>.<<

Not true! Whatever can be said about unreliability of the old Olympic Airlines, it nothing to do with lack of maintenance. Olympic Airlines had one of the best safety records in the world, and kept it's fleet in good operating condition. The airline, however, was an inefficent state-owned operation, kept going with government subsidies later deemed illegal by the European Commission.

Olympic <i>Air</i> is a completely new slimmed-down company, now owned by Marfin Investment Group. All the old employees of Olympic Airlines had to reapply for their jobs, and the company has all new aircraft in it's fleet, except for a few Dash 8-100 and ATR-42 turboprops retained for use on smaller airports, e.g. Naxos, Paros, Milos.

Disregard everything you have heard about Olympic <i>Airlines</i> - the company no longer exists. Marfin Investment Group has spent a lot of money improving the new OA. The only mistake it has made, IMO, is in retaining the Olympic name and logo.

Thanks for your correction, Heimdall. I should not have said lack of maintenance. I do think some delays in the past were due to lack of equipment (too small a fleet), in case a plane could not go they didn't have enough back-up. But as you say, almost all new aircraft now.

Thanks to the both of you. I booked on Olympic Air.