Aegean Airlines Faces EU Probe of Olympic Air Bid

Aegean Airlines SA faces an in-depth probe into its renewed bid to buy Olympic Air and form Greece’s biggest carrier, two years after the EU blocked a previous attempt over antitrust concerns.

The transaction may lead to price increases and poorer service on several domestic Greek routes out of Athens, where the merged entity would have “a monopoly or an otherwise strong market position,” the European Commission said in an e-mailed statement today. It set a new deadline of Sept. 3 to rule on the deal.