Last summer a 31-year-old woman wanted to travel from Mykonos to Patmos. The only way was to return to Athens and either take the ferry from Piraeus, which takes about 8.5 hours to reach Patmos, or fly from Athens to another island in the Dodecanese, such as Kos or Leros, and take a ferry from there, which could potentially include an overnight stay in Athens or the island in between. The 31-year-old, who for reasons of anonymity will be called Kyveli, chose another solution. She flew directly from the Windward Island to the island of the Apocalypse. “By helicopter,” she tells K, “it’s 20 minutes.” The cost, of course, is much higher. “But it’s very useful for some routes, you fly very comfortably, and, most importantly, you save a lot of time – to go to Antiparos or Koufonisia you need 6 hours by boat, with the helicopter it’s half an hour. Even for Mykonos, a trip that is normally 4 hours, from… door to door you do it in less than an hour,” she says. In the year, she now makes up to 10 private flights, chartering mostly helicopters, but also, whenever she can, a private aircraft. “I work to fly private,” she notes, “that’s how much I prefer it.” According to a Greenpeace survey published last March, in 2022 Greece was the 6th country in the European Union with the most private aircraft flights, up 66% from 2021, according to a Greenpeace survey published last March. Leather, comfortable armchairs for private jet passengers. Comfort and luxury are the strongest assets of private airlines. And the cost of the ticket, of course, is commensurate.
In 2023, Greek airports saw a total of 19,751 aerotaxi flights, flights for leisure purposes, with aircraft that can be chartered, according to the Civil Aviation Authority. This number does not include private domestic flights, which are made with one’s own aircraft, which in 2023 amounted to 4,963, according to the Service’s data. At the same time, 13 Greek airlines now have a Category B licence, which is given to companies operating commercial aircraft with less than 20 seats – 7 of them received the licence from 2018 onwards. International estimates want the private aircraft market to reach $29.3 billion by 2029, a 13.9% increase from where it is today. It is an industry that, it seems, is booming not only globally, but also in Greece.
The catalyst
In the 1980s, helicopters were mainly used for agricultural work – “spraying for mosquitoes on olive trees,” Doulis Karafil, director of Air Business International, which in 2017 created the Greek Air Taxi Network, which Karafil likens to “something like TaxiBeat for helicopters and planes,” tells K. “With the boom of the stock market, the helicopter came to Greece like a hail mary,” he says, adding that there was a time when every “famous” Greek wanted to go to Nammos in Mykonos by helicopter. “We used to have a 13-seater helicopter but the market fell and we gave it away,” he notes. But then came the pandemic. “During the years of the coronavirus, and unlike the airline companies in which there was a significant decrease in flights, the company noticed an increase in private flights, which continues to this day,” Hara Haniadaki, a representative of the charter department of ifly, tells K, stressing that from 2019 to date they have seen a 35% increase in demand, both in terms of helicopters and jets. Agusta helicopter of a private company. Customers prefer them because they can take off and land almost anywhere, without being bound by the much tighter schedules in place at airports. A similar increase in demand was also noted by Konstantinos Pilipoulos, COO of Ariston Group, which has the Aviation Factory representation in Greece, acting as an intermediary between customers and airlines for jet and helicopter travel. “If we compare 2019 to 2022 at least, because it was the first year after the coronavirus and everyone wanted to spend, we are definitely up 30%,” he says. First, there were not enough routes for some routes. And secondly, those who could afford it preferred to pay more in order not to get on a plane with 100 other people. The pandemic took private airlines off the ground. On the one hand, because there was a reduction in scheduled services and, on the other hand, because those who could afford it preferred to avoid a plane with 100 passengers. Demand for helicopter transport, which many market experts call the ultimate luxury as a helicopter does not have to be picked up from the airport but from a nearby heliport, has increased by 70% since 2019, Anastasia Aslanidou, sales manager at Airpower Aviation, tells K. Helicopters are more flexible in terms of departure and landing times because they do not need slots to land at an airport, as is the case with planes of any size, she explains. “When a client requests a flight from Athens to Mykonos, in recent years they avoid private planes because Mykonos airport has a certain cost to land there, whereas let’s say we have our own helipad in Mykonos, the helicopter is more advantageous for the client,” she says. The cost for helicopters, according to Ariston Group’s Piliopoulos, is €2,500 plus VAT per flight leg, and applies to Mykonos and Corfu airports. “There is an increase and we saw it too during the pandemic,” a Fraport executive in Greece told K, explaining that at airports where there is very heavy traffic, such as the two aforementioned, aircraft must not only have a landing slot but also leave after 45 minutes due to limited capacity. “They leave people and often go to Turkey or Skopje for an overnight stay,” says Kostas Krystallis, managing director of Proton Air Services, which represents foreign airlines, with a focus on private aircraft. Last year and the summer before last, there was a severe problem with regard to the “overnight” stay of such aircraft, he notes. “In Greece there are no private airports to absorb these aircraft as is the case in France – here we have other difficulties, some airports have no fuel,” he stresses. Nevertheless, the sector is booming. Proton Air Services, which is headquartered in Thessaloniki but now has offices in Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, Heraklion, Aktio, Paros, and Corfu, expects 2024 to see demand grow by more than 7% year-on-year. The appetite for private transportation has been so strong in recent years that Vassilis Brinias decided to launch a startup related to the sector. “Fly Luxurious”, which he founded with his partners in 2021, “deals with helicopter and aircraft rentals – we don’t have our own fleet, we just do market research for customers who send us requests.” Like the other market experts, Brinias tells K that although most requests are for domestic flights, and are for the extended summer season from May to October, with a peak from June to August, customers are mainly from abroad.
Customers
“95% of the passengers on flights are foreigners,” Konstantinos Zoulias, director of Zela Jet, a subsidiary of Zela Aviation created in 2021 by Greek Cypriot entrepreneur Andreas Christodoulides, tells K, due to the increase in demand for private travel in Greece. Their customers, Zoulias points out, are mainly Americans, while they also have many Australians and Arabs. The same is supported by Mrs. Haniadaki of ifly, stressing that there is also an increased demand from citizens of EU countries (Germans, French, Swiss, Austrians), as well as from British. A jet of a private airline company is parked at the airport “El. Venizelos airport. In areas of high tourist traffic, airlines must not only have a landing slot, but also depart after 45 minutes due to limited capacity. Slowly, Indians and Chinese, who had stopped coming to the country because of the pandemic, are also returning to the country, Karafil said. But other markets have been lost. “We used to have helicopters in Thessaloniki and Crete, but we don’t have them anymore, since the Russians stopped coming – Halkidiki died for us until the war ended,” he says. The loss of tourists from Russia is also felt in the reduced popularity of certain destinations, Zoulias says, especially Patmos. “For Patmos’ religious tourism, Russians were the best customers,” he tells K. The war in Ukraine has zeroed out tourist arrivals from Russia, one of the biggest “target groups” for plane and helicopter rental companies, especially for the Halkidiki and Patmos regions because of religious interest. Their services are used by many Greek-Americans, Karafil adds, pointing out that large families can often travel to Greece, and the difference between chartering a plane for 10 people and booking all the airline tickets from Athens to Paros, for example, is not outrageous. However, speaking generally about tourists coming from the US, he stresses that Americans visiting the country before the pandemic left more money. “The average was 50,000 euros per person,” he says. “Now we have more flights, more people, but ‘first class’ tourism has probably dropped. One thing is a trip to Markopoulo, another to Tuscany – Greece is good but we still have a long way to go,” he says. As for the Greeks, everyone stresses that there is an increase in their travel by jet and helicopter – “there has been an upward trend in recent years from both traditional clients from the shipping industry and clients from real estate and investors,” says ifly’s Chaniadaki – but it is subtle.
Tariff at 2,300 euros, but also “offers”
“Because helicopter transport starts from a certain price, it is not chosen as a mode of transport by a Greek family,” Ms Aslanidou tells K. For the smallest helicopter available from Airpower Aviation it starts at 2,300 euros for a trip Athens – Mykonos, she notes. The Mykonos – Santorini route starts at 1,850. “But we always look to appeal to Greek tourism as well,” she stresses. As all helicopters have to be back at their base by sunset, if one has left customers in Mykonos, for example, and has to return to Athens, available seats are offered at a reduced price. At the Greek Air Taxi Network, which is run by Mr. Karafil, in addition to chartering helicopters or jets, one can search for both available seats on various routes and “empty legs”, empty helicopters or jets returning from a destination and can be chartered at a lower price. For example, there are now several seats available for the route Mykonos – Santorini, and Santorini – Mykonos many days in June, for 615 euros per seat. Helicopters or jets returning empty from a destination can be chartered at lower prices. There are even more empty legs available. On 4 April, with a departure time of 10.40, a 4-seater helicopter, priced at 250 euros per seat, will fly from Hydra to Athens. On 3 May, at the same price, another helicopter, 6 seats, will leave Spetses for Athens at 2 pm. On 29 April, a 10-seat jet will fly at 12.34 from Athens to Thessaloniki – but for the planes, the price is given on request.
The routes
According to Civil Aviation Authority data, the most air taxi flights last year were to Athens Eleftherios Venizelos airport – 13,011 in 2023. But in the summer months at least, the most popular domestic flight by far is the Athens-Mykonos route. Other destinations that are consistently preferred are Corfu, Santorini, Rhodes and Paros, which has been on the rise in recent years, the companies’ representatives say. “In recent years, Kalamata has also seen increasing traffic because of Costa Navarino,” says Mr. Krystallis, while Ms. Haniadaki stresses that Kea is also a very popular destination because of the One & Only hotel, and Porto Heli because of Amanzoe. According to Ms Aslanidou, Airpower Aviation saw an increase from 2022 to 2023 in helicopter traffic to Io by 80%, 50% to Paros and 20% to Santorini. The Santorini – Ios route was so popular last summer that at one point they were doing 30 flights a day, he points out. At Greek Air Taxi Network, they see that apart from Ios, Milos, Astypalaia and Folegandros are rising in popularity, while the small Cyclades are firmly in the customer’s choices. “Koufonisia and Schinoussa have always been up,” says Zoulias of Zela Jet, “but they have reached their limit, they don’t have the capacity to support even more traffic.”
88,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide in one year
According to last year’s Greenpeace report, private jets flying from Greek airports in 2022 caused 88,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide, a 69% increase compared to 2021, always according to Greenpeace. In 2022, the closest trip made 10 times or more in a year by private jet was from Mykonos to Syros. “The fastest ferry trip between the two islands takes 25 minutes,” Greenpeace pointed out. Dimitris Kossifas, commercial director of Airpower Aviation, tells K that the sustainability aspect is of great concern to the industry. “Helicopters,” which he points out fly even in conditions where there may be a ban on ships, “have a much smaller carbon footprint per hour than an airplane.” Mr Zoulias says that in Greece, unfortunately, there is still no viable fuel for helicopters, but he agrees with Mr Kossifas that they are a more viable option compared to planes.
Hotels
But as long as big hotel chains open in the country, the clientele with such demands will continue to grow, says British travel journalist Rachel Howard, who grew up in Greece, to “K”. “These kinds of hotels, such as Amanzoe, Mandarin Oriental, One and Only, Four Seasons, bring in travellers from that part of the market, and of course their location plays a role, if they are in more remote places, travelling by jet or helicopter reduces the travel time,” she says. “But the Greece I grew up in is definitely disappearing fast,” he adds. The publications she works with abroad, for example Conde Nast Traveller, are interested in articles that cover Greece as a luxurious, eclectic destination. “It’s something new, and it raises the standards in Greece, it’s not necessarily a negative thing, but there has to be a plan – we all know that we are experiencing a severe climate crisis, more serious decisions are needed, investments by large hotels have many positives but also bring challenges for the environment and local communities,” Howard says. Another young Greek woman, who has travelled by private plane and helicopter mainly to and from Lemnos, thanks to her family connection with a businessman on the island, says the trip was very comfortable. “You can bring whatever you want on board the plane, you don’t waste time at the airport, it’s much more convenient and quick,” she says. But, despite the good things about this particular experience, she wouldn’t do it again. “It’s a huge environmental impact,” he tells K, “for no reason.” And “it’s not worth it.”
