For our Perspectives series, we talk to experienced business aviation industry professionals who share with us their individual insights and offer a window into their world. This month's interviewee is Andreas Christodoulides, chairman of Zela Aviation and newly-formed Zela Jet. The company is looking to capitalise on the heavy amount of traffic that comes to Greece and Cyprus each summer, especially the islands of Mykonos and Santorini. Christodoulides says that the corporate market in Cyprus is also strong.

“I am based in London but often travel to Cyprus and Greece. Zela Aviation has been around for 16 years. Our head office is in Cyprus and we have offices in Greece and the UK. For a long time we have dealt with commercial aircraft, and this accounted for around 90 per cent of our business, on ACMI, dry lease and sales. In March 2020, as we saw a demand in cargo and business jets, we decided to grow the company, by adding cargo, executive jets and helicopters. This came as a result of COVID. We were looking to provide an option for first class and business class passengers. Airlines don’t have the same frequency of scheduled services available any more, compared with what they used to do, and this remains the case.

I decided to launch Zela Jet, a different brand to Zela Aviation, concentrating on my own country of Greece and Cyprus, where Zela Aviation performs well and where we have contacts.

We wanted to recruit some more experienced people into Zela Jet, people familiar with business aviation, because before we were more on the commercial side. We wanted to expand as much as possible within Greece and Cyprus. We have appointed two PR companies in Cyprus and Greece, and we are putting a sales team on the road, going around the Greek islands and Cyprus.

Greece is historically a booming country in terms of traffic, in the summer especially. Mykonos and Santorini in particular have seen numbers increasing year after year. Cyprus and Greece are always going to sell, and especially the Greek islands, with a lot of business traffic including helicopters. Helicopters are great for the Greek islands without airports.

Cyprus is well-positioned, between the Middle East and Europe. I have seen growth in the Cyprus market, especially during September and June, for business traffic. The government of Cyprus has created a lot of tax incentives for people to invest and open their companies in the country. Business traffic to Cyprus has expanded, especially Russian traffic. Many Russian companies have now established themselves in Cyprus, because of the weather as well as the tax benefits. I saw an opportunity in Greece and Cyprus.

We are coming to the market as a broker at this stage, and we are in negotiations to lease a couple of aircraft to be based in Athens. We are hoping to do this by 1 July. Although Greece is opening on the 14th May, we don’t know yet what kinds of travel will be permitted. We will be pushing these aircraft in Greece all the way up to September, and we will look to move one of the aircraft down to Cyprus to take advantage of the better weather and business opportunities.

We are looking at Piaggio aircraft at this stage. We have found opportunities with certain business associates with whom we have been working for years. They are available, and we believe it is a very good aircraft for Greece.

We are not thinking too much about the UK market for Zela Jet. It is quite a big market, but most of my team are in Greece and Cyprus. I decided to concentrate on my own home countries, where I feel more comfortable and I believe I can succeed more and quicker. We are working alongside a very established operator, and we plan to launch a shared ownership programme with it in 2022, using Eclipse 550s. These are low cost air taxis, which we believe will be a suitable product for Greece, the Greek islands and even internationally; Istanbul, Sofia, Bucharest and so on, nearby destinations.”