Exclusive: Simigdalas will not head merged Olympic

Antonis Simigdalas has revealed that he will not continue as Olympic Air chief executive after the merger with local rival Aegean Airlines.

Simigdalas, who formerly headed Aegean, told Airline Business of his plans on the sidelines of the European Regions Airline Association general assembly in Barcelona.

Commenting on the combination of Aegean and Olympic, Simigdalas said: "This is going to be a brilliant opportunity for whoever is going to be running the ultimate product of the merger to take advantage of the best of both companies."

But Simigdalas stresses that this leader will "definitely not" be him.

"I think I need to move to a more intellectual [academic] activity than the everyday running of an airline," he says. "That could be sooner [than the merger], depending on how the timeline goes."

We featured Simigdalas on the cover of our March issue. Read the full interview here.