Olympic Air - A Popular Low-Cost Greek Airline

Olympic Air is a budget airline that operates under the Aegean Airlines group umbrella. It was formed as recently as 2009, but its roots go far deeper. In fact, the airline is the direct descendant of Olympic Airlines, which was Greece's national carrier from 1957 until 2009.

When the company took over Olympic Airlines' operations, it had to cut back slightly from its predecessor's global reach, but temporarily retained 65 percent of its destinations and routes. It also took a pro-active approach to modernising the Greek airline sector, becoming the first Hellenic airline to offer online check-in in 2009.

Since merging with Aegean in 2013, Olympic has scaled back its international ambitions, transferring them over to their parent company. Nowadays, the company offers an affordable way to travel around Greece. With services from Athens to popular spots like Kos, Rhodes, Ithaca, Crete, Corfu and Mykonos, Olympic Air allows hundreds of thousands of visitors to reach their beach holiday destinations every year.

Via the Star Alliance and Aegean, the company is tightly linked to international destinations. Olympic Airlines offers nonstop service to Athens from New York (JFK), Toronto, and Montreal. The airline also flies to over 30 domestic destinations within Greece, 20 more across Europe, as well as to Cairo, Alexandria, Johannesburg, Tel Aviv, Kuwait, Beirut, and Dubai. The airline is named after the Twelve Olympians, the main gods and goddesses in Greek Mythology who held court atop Mount Olympus, and not after the Olympic Games as the logo on the planes may resemble.

Flying with Olympic Air

Olympic offers two broad ticket classes for their flights: Economy and Business. In Economy classes, passengers have two extra choices: GoLight and Flex. GoLight offers the cheapest fares, while Flex allows you to change your travel plans with no extra costs. In both cases, a hand baggage allowance of 8 kg applies and all checked baggage comes with an additional charge.

In Business Class, passengers enjoy an expanded carry-on baggage allowance and two checked bags of up to 32 kg each. There are special fast-track Business Class check-in counters, and all children travelling in Business Class are eligible for a 33 percent discount as well.

Olympic Air is also part of the Miles+Bonus loyalty scheme. As you fly with Aegean or Olympic, you can accumulate miles. These can then be redeemed on further travel, or for Happy Miles flights which are available at a big discount for short periods. Aegean have also hooked up with accommodation provider Booking.com, allowing customers to earn points when they book accommodation as well.

Practical Information

Check-in: Customers flying with Olympic Air have two choices regarding check-in. Online check-in opens 48 hours before departure and closes 30 minutes before take-off. The other option is to use the self check-in machines at your departure airport (you'll need your credit/debit card, passport and e-ticket number to do so).

Olympic Air operates the following baggage rules:

• Carry-on bags must measure less than 55 x 40 x 23 cm and weigh less than 8 kg

• One personal item is permitted as long as it can slide underneath the seat in front of you

• GoLight tickets come with no checked baggage allowance

• Flex customers can check one piece of baggage weighing 23 kg or less

• Business Class passengers can check two bags weighing 32 kg each

• Miles+Bonus card holders can check one extra piece of luggage