ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Greece's new, private Olympic Air will start flights on Oct. 1, replacing the chronically loss-making state carrier Olympic Airlines, company officials said.

Andreas Vgenopoulos, executive chairman of Marfin Investment Group, said the airline will start with 21 aircraft serving domestic and international routes - including New York, through a code-sharing agreement with Delta Airlines.

"We want to make the company a regional leader and ... if we have the opportunity, potentially one of the largest airlines in the world,'' Vgenopoulos said.

The company is finalizing a code-sharing agreement with Air France, and is seeking to join the Skyteam global airline alliance, which carries out more than 16,000 flights daily to 169 countries.

MIG won bids for the state carrier in March in a euro177.2 million deal, beating Olympic's main domestic rival, Aegean Airlines, and US-based Chrysler Aviation.

The agreement followed the conservative government's public appeal to investors, after a previous tender - the sixth effort to privatize the ailing firm - failed to attract sufficiently high bids.

Vgenopoulos said he was committed to allow the airline's re-nationalization if early elections next month bring the main opposition Socialists to power. The Socialists, who are up to 8 points ahead in the polls, have said they would like state participation in the carrier.

Vgenopoulos declined to estimate how deeply in the red the company had sunk under state ownership. The government has said that the old carrier liquidated, had been losing euro1 million ($1.5 million) a day.