Founded by Aristotle Onassis on April 6, 1957 after he took over the Greek national airline T.A.E. . It was the first airline to have scheduled flights to five continents. After the death of Alexander Onassis his father Aristotle sold the company to the Greek government (1974).

On December 8, 1969, an Olympic Airways DC-6B crashed near Athens, Greece during a storm killing 93 people.

On April 6, 1997 Olympic Airways celebrated its 40th birthday.

By 2003, the Olympic Airways Group of Companies owned Olympic Airways, Olympic Aviation and Macedonian Airlines.

It is one of the safest (in terms of crashes) airlines worldwide. The company has faced serious financial trouble since the 80's mostly because of its bad management after it was taken over by the Greek government which has recently restructured the Olympic Airways Group of Companies, renaming the parent company Olympic Airlines and is negotiating the sale of the 51% of the company.