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| Founded | 2002 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ceased operations | 2010 | ||||||
| Operating bases | Athens International Airport | ||||||
| Secondary hubs | Heraklion Airport | ||||||
| Fleet size | 6 | ||||||
| Destinations | 2 | ||||||
| Parent company | Air Miles Group | ||||||
| Headquarters | Athens, Greece | ||||||
| Key people | Petros Stathis (CEO) | ||||||
| Website | www.hellas-jet.com[usurped] | ||||||
Hellas Jet was acharter airline based inAthens, Greece, operating services to Greece from destinations elsewhere inEurope. Its main base wasAthens International Airport.[2] Hellas Jet was a licensed scheduled and charter carrier, holding aJAA AOC and a Line Maintenance Certificate under JAA/EASA Part 145, both approved by the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority. It ceased operations in 2010 due to economic difficulties. The repossession of two of itsAirbus A320 aircraft, 87 and 88, was documented on Discovery channel TV programmeAirplane Repo.[citation needed] The company slogan wasMore than a flight.
The airline was started in 2002 as aCyprus Airways subsidiary and the first flight was on 24 June 2003 from Athens. At the end of its first year of operation, it had completed 3,855 flights and carried over 250,000 passengers.[citation needed] Due to heavy losses, Hellas Jet suspended all scheduled flights from 10 May 2005. In January 2006, the airline announced it would refocus on charter operations. In August 2006, Cyprus Airways sold its shares toAir Miles, the trading name ofTrans World Aviation. The aim was to resume services later in 2007 usingwet leasedAirbus A320 aircraft. It was wholly owned byAir Miles and had 50 employees (at March 2009).[2]
Hellas Jet was an IATA member.
As a scheduled airline, Hellas Jet initially operated two flights per day from Athens to Paris and Brussels, and one per day to London Heathrow and Zurich respectively. Later the Zurich flights were suspended due to low passenger numbers and were replaced by daily flights to London Gatwick, while there was a slight reduction in the Paris and Brussels frequencies to enable two flights per week from Athens to Manchester to operate. The weekend flights to Gatwick were transferred to Heathrow in 2005, although the mid-week flights were later suspended for most of the year, except for the busy Christmas and New Year period.
As a charter airline, Hellas Jet operated charter flights to/fromHeraklion andRhodes to St. Petersburg, Moscow, Amsterdam, Düsseldorf, Paris etc. One aircraft also flew from Dublin to holiday destinations in Spain on behalf of Trans Aer. Its fleet was available for both scheduled charters as well as ad-hoc charter flights.
Hellas Jet commenced operations with a fleet of three Airbus A320-232 aircraft, registered SX-BVA, SX-BVB and SX-BVC, leased from CIT Aerospace. BVA was built in 1992, the other two were brand new. They had been acquired on three-year leases. Their initial configuration was for 148 passengers (16 business class and 132 economy class), all with leather seats.
When the company ceased scheduled services, the aircraft were reconfigured in Malta to have a single class layout with 174moquette-trimmed seats.
SX-BVB was destroyed by fire in Brussels in May 2006. The other two planes were returned to the lessor in June 2006 and subsequently, BVA went toThomas Cook Airlines Belgium and BVC toAir Astana of Kazakhstan.
Then Hellas-Jet leased two other used A320s, this time with CFM engines. One came from LatCharter and the other fromUSA3000, and they retained their colour schemes with Hellas Jet titles. A further A320 was acquired from LatCharter, registered SX-BVD, withLatCharter colours but with Hellas Jet titles and the HellasJet logo on the engines.
In its final years, the Hellas Jet fleet consisted of the following aircraft (at 29 September 2009):[3]
On 5 May 2006, a Hellas JetAirbus A320 was destroyed in a fire in theSabena Technics hangar atBrussels Airport inBelgium. The plane was one of the threeAirbus A320s destroyed, one belonging toArmavia, one toArmenian International Airways, and oneLockheed C-130 owned by theBelgian Air Component.[4]
