Goodbye Olympic Airlines - Hallo Olympic Air !

Wednesday 30 September is the last day of existence of Olympic Airlines, formerly Olympic Airways, the former national carrier of Greece which has brought in crippling losses over the years. The airline has been privatised after years of trying to find a buyer. As of 1 October 2009, "Olympic Air", under the ownership of the Marfin Investment Group, will take to the skies. One of the major problems of the former national airlines, set up and originally owner by Aristotle Onassis, was the age of the fleet. The core of the airline and the European and national networks were served by Boeing 737's, many of them over 20 years old.

The new fleet will consist initially of 13 Airbuses (320's and 319's) as well as 10 Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 aircraft , five Bombardier Dash 8-100 and one ATR-42. I imagine the Airbuses will serve the international routes and the Dash fleet will be allocated to the 20 domestic locations. In fact the fleet in considerably downsized although an additional number of Dash and Airbuses will also come into service by March 2010.  Total investment in new aircraft is well over $1.1 billion.
One major difference is that the new Olympic Air will no longer fly to intercontinental destinations. Until today Olympic Airlines was flying to Johannesburg, New York and to Toronto via Montreal. These routes never made profit and seemingly now have been abandoned. Additionally I imagine cuts in certain Euroepan routes, the new website of the airline gives few details but does state that it will serve London, Paris, Vienna, Brussels, Amsterdam, Milan, Rome, Bucharest, Larnaca, and Sofia. I assume several German routes (Berlin, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf and perhaps Munich) will get the chop mainly on account of the fierce competition Olympic Air will face from Aegean Airlines which in recent years has been taking on a increasing number of European routes to compete with Olympic.

What a surprise - 5000 homeless in Athens

Last month I wrote a short article about Greek authorities clearing illegal immigrants out of ruined buildings in Athens. I complained about the short-sightedness of such actions asking where are these people supposed to go. I was therefore nto astonished to open today's newspaper and read about the increase in the number of homeless in Athens this winter.
Official figures show that 5,000 people are homeless in the city. They even admit that the number is probably much higher - something they would be less eager to admit with unemployment figures but that is not a surprise either. 

Deputy Mayor Eleftherios Skiadas had to admit that the clean up operations in the summer had had its consequences. “The evacuation roughly doubled the number of people at our meal centers.” They simply could not cope. This is what I mean by short-sighted actions on the part of the authorities. Instead of taking a more pro-active stance and arranging for these homeless to find alternative accommodation, they were left on the street. Something, I fear symbolic of Greek politics, solve the immediate problems and worry about the consequences later. The social unrest kindled by such off-the-cuff decisions is exemplied by the following: 

"Over the last three months, Koumoundourou Square has turned into an open-air hotel for immigrants, homeless people and drug addicts,” said the Panathinaia residents’ group in a letter to Alternate Interior Minister Christos Markoyiannakis." Fabulous eh?

PASOK's election strategy - will Greece swallow it?

Now after the week-end speech of Papandreou, PASOK oppostion leader, we have a clearer view of how the party plans ot get the majority. As I stated in my previous post he seems to be placing importance on emphasising what PASOK will push through byu way of legislation in the first 100 days if the party wins the election. One measure which will inevitably be popular - if the electorate fall for it - is the promise to raise wages and pensions in the public sector - the exact opposite of Karamanlis who stated his intention to freeze wages in the public sector. Papandreou plans to make savings by cutting public waste in the sector.
Secondly PASOK  has vowed they will introduce legislation to protect people with bank loans and to take measure to combat the rising cost of living. One such measure is to break any cartel or price fixing in Greece, issues we have seen in the past on account of the relatively small number of big players in the market. This will be combined with stronger efforts to combat tax evasion and to tax church properties. A third measure Papandreou mentions is help for small and medium-sized enterprises in the form of low-cost loans and an additional measure which makes sense is working on cutting bureaucracy for those wishing to set themselves up in business. Although not specific in his speech, Papandreou also foresees incetnives on the job market to increase employment in the face of the economic crisis.
New Democracy has responded that this is an unrealistic set of measures which does not entail one unpopular measure. So now the question remains if PASOK has the credibility among the electorate to get their vote of confidence in the form of an election victory.

Election in Greece - the fight is on!

If someone were to asked me today, based on the statements of the ruling party led by PM, Kostas Karamanlis, and by G. Papandreaou, opposition leader of PASOK, who is going to wine the elections on 4th October, I think my answer would be, I do not know. The Greek media treat the campaign now as a politcal Olympic 100 meters race, happy that they can now fill endless hours of television time with the senseless rantings and speculations of six people talking at the same time. 
Opposition leader, Papandreou, outlined PASOK's strategy today and yesterday at the end of the Thessaloniki Trade Fair. I am surprised that he has made the mistake of foregoing the support of previous PASOK Prime Minister, Kostas Simitis, who has announced that he will not stand in the upcoming elections - a clear expression of the divide within the party. It is a mistake Papandreou may well  regret not reaching a compromise with Simitis.
PASOK's election manifesto held few surprises and in some senses is an imitation of the Obama campaign in view of what PASOK would do in the first 100 days if the party wins the elections.
However, there is one fact no one can hide - not even Papandreou. The citizens will have to undergo hard times in terms of taxation and other measures if Greece is to get out of the financial and economic mess it now finds itself.