Press Release: Mergers: Commission approves acquisition of Greek airline Olympic Air by Aegean Airlines

The European Commission on 9 October 2013 cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of Olympic Air by Aegean Airlines, both Greek air carriers.

The Commission's in-depth investigation showed that Olympic Air would be forced to exit the market in the near future due to financial difficulties if not acquired by Aegean. Once Olympic would be out of business, Aegean would become the only significant domestic service provider and would capture Olympic's current market shares. Therefore, with or without the merger, Olympic would soon disappear as a competitor to Aegean. Thus the merger causes no harm to competition that would not have occurred anyway.

• Primary Source

European Commission: RAPID: Speech, SPEECH/13/800: Statement on Aegean/Olympic Air merger http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-800_en.htm

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