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Post by artisans on Mar 5, 2009 20:18:18 GMT 2
Alternative Airlines yesterday made the following announcement which could well affect those travelling out of season to Corfu:
There is great speculation that Aegean Airlines have a good chance of grabbing the extremelly ill state owned Greek airline Olympic rivalling an earlier bid from the MIG.
Aegean Airlines spokesperson said "Aegean has today submitted an offer of 90 million euros ($112 million) to purchase assets related to Olympic’s flying operations. It also offered 20 million euros to acquire Olympic’s aircraft maintenance base and 60 million to buy Pantheon, a company set up by the government as a successor of debt free Olympic Airlines. The aim of Aegean and its shareholders is to create a stronger airline that is able to compete with improved prospects in the European airspace."
Aegean’s offer is reported to exceed MIG’s 45.7 million euro bid for Olympic’s flying operations and its 16.7 million offer for the technical base.
The sale of Olympic has become a marathon as Greek Govt and EU wrangling have seriously delayed the offloading if the debt ridden airline. The govt recently invited Greek businesses after the tender process failed to attract any high profile organizations or any significant bids for Olympic.
Could the Aegean bid prompt the govt to bring the sale of the national airline to a swift conclusion? Will it be a case of the laid back Greek way of thinking adding a few more laps and the race becoming a double marathon? Fancy a few laps!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2009 11:30:15 GMT 2
I have been delving a lot lately into the Greek media, news, and government forums in particular as far as tourism goes. It appears to me that up until now Greece has had this laid back attitude on tourism which has now become a major factor in the government forums.
There have been some big meetings of late, in Berlin, Amsterdam, and of course in Greece. At it is now realised that Greece and its islands have failed themselves really over the past couple of years.
It does look like now that they are not going to sit back anymore and hope for the best, or do another lap, or see if they can get a better offer. Already they have implemented a 2% drop in tax on tourism. Made resolutions to all the tourists trades. It would be silly if they did not take this Aegean offer for Olympic, and forget their pride of a national airline, Aegean is still Greek.
Moreso now in the recessions around the world, places like Greece need to really look deep into tourism and ensure that they can offer the best deals to keep the likes of us and others coming to Corfu. Having put the feelers out around the Travel Shops, numbers are already down for this year compared to last year, and 2007.
With airline and many other things, this will be good for Greece, and its tourism industry.
Yeiamas, Chris
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