Olympic Air, the newly-launched, privately-owned Greek airline, has awarded cargo GSA contracts to European Cargo services (ECS) companies in France, Italy, the UK, Romania and Bulgaria.

Aero Cargo will represent Olympic Air in France while Globe Air Cargo ' another wholly-owned business in the ECS group ' will market the airline's capacity in the other four countries.

Olympic Air commenced operations on October 1st, 2009 ' succeeding the state-owned Olympic Airways - and is owned by HYPERLINK "http://www.marfininvestmentgroup.com/" \o "MIG Group" \t "_blank" Marfin Investment Group (MIG), the largest business group in Southeastern Europe, active in the fields of transport, tourism, food, healthcare and IT, with more than 56,000 employees.

The airline's network serves 10 international destinations and 20 domestic routes, with the intention to serve another 14 domestic locations. Olympic Air will boast one of the youngest fleets of aircraft in Europe, consisting of Airbus A319/A320s and Bombardier Dash 8s as part of a fleet investment programme expected to exceed US$1.1 billion.

Olympic will operate two daily flights to Athens from the main European cities in its network, notably Paris, London, Milan, Rome. Aero Cargo and Globe, which will also market Bucharest and Sofia for Olympic Air, expect to generate some 50 tons of cargo a month for the airline.

Adrien Thominet, Director of ECS, said: 'The launch of Olympic Air is the start of an exciting new era for the Greek market and we are delighted to have been chosen as the airline's GSA in five of its major markets in Europe. Greece has considerable business potential and through Aero Cargo and Globe Air Cargo, we have the sales network and track record that will be needed to maximise this great opportunity.'