Vasilis Melissaris of Greek charterers Interjet Hellenic Avia has been telling EBAN of the company’s latest acquisition, a Citation Excel. The aircraft is due to be delivered later in the year and will charter out at 3,200 dollars per flight hour. “The Excel has a stand-up cabin, which really makes a difference.

Everybody wants a lot of space when they’re flying. Usually business people charter this aircraft to fly around Europe, 80 per cent of which are Greek customers and the rest are from abroad (countries such as Cyprus and Egypt),” said Melissaris.

“I believe the Citation Excel that’s coming will carry eight passengers and will be configured with the factory layout. It will appeal to customers because it’s a brand new aircraft and has a large luggage space. In my opinion it’s the cabin rather than range which is its forte,” he added.

The company also operates a Citation V Ultra, a Falcon 2000 and a second Excel (delivered in December 1999) from its base in Athens. “We do mainly ad-hoc charters, although we have some contracts with large companies here in Greece, where we deal with frequent flyers travelling around the Balkans,” he added. The company also plans to move into management, although as yet its fleet is completely self-owned.

Business doesn’t always come via its own sales brokers, Melissaris explained: “Our base is in Athens,

so when a broker has a customer from Turkey, Israel or Egypt, they might use us because there are no other operators in the area.” He also has good reason to believe that Interjet will benefit greatly from this next addition: “The industry in Greece is improving, we didn’t expect increases in January and February, but it happened.

“It’s not a matter of our pricing, but the fact that we have our base in Athens.”