Olympic Airlines To Change Its Name?

Olympic Airlines has been in quite a bit of trouble recently. After the Hellenic government's failed privatization bid back in 2004, when it aimed to privatize the state-owned Greek flag carrier, Olympic finds itself in more troble with the government.

This time, it's over illegal loans. The European Union alleges that hundreds of millions of euros were illegally given to the airline through loans by the Hellenic government. Kathimerini, a Greek English-language newspaper, reports that the government has submitted a business plan to the EU in which Olympic Airlines would cease to exist but have its network taken over by a new airline, Pantheon Airways. (For an in-depth look at the name, head over to Strategic Name Development's blog.)

But to make things more confusing, Finance Minister Giorgos Alogoskoufis said in an interview that the Olympic brand name might not be disposed of after all. “It is our objective to keep the name, despite the fact the [would-be new] company is known by the code name Pantheon,” he said.