Hellenic Imperial Airways To Birmingham!

Why are we suddenly bringing up threads that were last contributed to more than a year ago?:confused:

Hey Aspis,

thanks for these useful information!
They do not seem very reliable…

BTW, what’s the source of your information concerning the fact that “EASA initially activated SAFA (Safety Audit of Foreign Airlines) for the 2 above mentioned airlines and in the final high risk list that issued, HIA ranks 4th and Hellas Jet ranks 8th.”

I tried to look for these EASA reports but could not find them, are they publicly available?

Many thanks!

F

It’s ELEFTHEROTYPIA (www.enet.gr) greek newspaper is this article:

http://archive.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=110,dt=27.03.2009,id=60761300

More precisely in this part of the text:

Στη μαύρη αυτή λίστα η Hellenic Imperial Airways εμφανίζεται 4η σε επικινδυνότητα και η Hellas Jet 8η.

(you can google translate it).

It also mentions that the “black list” was pubblished from EASA in February 2009.

Hey Aspis,

thanks for these useful information!
They do not seem very reliable…

BTW, what’s the source of your information concerning the fact that “EASA initially activated SAFA (Safety Audit of Foreign Airlines) for the 2 above mentioned airlines and in the final high risk list that issued, HIA ranks 4th and Hellas Jet ranks 8th.”

I tried to look for these EASA reports but could not find them, are they publicly available?

Many thanks!

F

i got information that is hellenic company made contract with ilbian airline for haj & omra in this month…is that true

The airline’s Birmingham-based UK representative, Ahmed Chowdhury, said he believed there was a large market for the Athens service among the Greek community in the West Midlands, and within a 100-mile catchment area of the airport.

The connection to Jeddah would also be attractive to Birmingham’s Muslim community as the Saudi Arabian city was the gateway to Mecca, which Muslims are required to visit once in their lifetime.

This explains why the “hellenic” and registering in Greece.

1) the greek students living in UK as well as the greek cypriot community, will use it regularly , probably also thinking they are “greek”. Same goes for British tourists in summer (bonus).

2) Greece is geographically located very well for whoever wants to service middle eastern countries. And since the President is Jordanian, it’s easy to see why Middle East is also a priority for them and having Greece as “base”, they are in the middle of their road between northern europe and ME.

Besides…..I think I’d rather go to Athens than Tehran :rolleyes::D.

Wherever you want to go with that airline, i think you are brave. I ‘d rather do Birmingham-Athens by train than flying with them after what i found. 😀

Funny… I hadn’t heard of it before… And i think i just found out why.

It seems that it’s greek based (registered), but not greek. The “Hellenic” part seems only used as marketing trick.

According to this:
http://www.gnews.gr/Reportage/hellenic

This company is the ex “Air Universal”. It first tried to register in Cyprus, but was denied license.

Later it registered in Greece, but the flight license was revoked, after the technical branch of Olympic airlines refused to do the light and heavy maintenance. At the end the heavy maintanance was agreed to be done by KLM.
The President and owner of Hellenic Imperial is a Jordanian businessman, Talal Abureyal.

In any case, 26 parlament members of Greece had in 2007 submitted question in the parliament, about whether it was safe company or not, based on the fact that the minister of transportation in 2007 had revoked the license for “not complying with national and european legislation”.

http://www.gnews.gr/Reportage/hellenic

———————————————————-

Then there is this 2008 article:

http://news.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_economyepix_2_09/11/2008_291453

According to which, the license was revoked for the 2nd time in 2008, after being denounced to the greek civil aviation authority and to EASA.

As the article says, “it’s a company that since the first moment raised suspicion and unanswered questions, because it was keeping for large periods of time, her 4 B747 grounded. But the paradoxes started with the arrival of her first aircraft, while it was still flying with the insignia of Air Universal, a company based in Sierra Leone.

The cost of keeping the aircrafts grounded in El. Venizelos airport was huge, while her flight work was intermittent. The official webpage says that the aim of the company is to do programmed and charter flights, cargo transportation in Europe, Middle Eastm Mediterranean but also accross the atlantic destinations. However, during her existance, is only doing a few charter flights.

Information refer that the flight license was revoked after iregularities observed in flight safety, violation of working hours of personnel and trainning problems. The responsibles of HIA are confident that the license blockade will be lifted soon, while the attribute the license revocation to irregularities that don’t have anything to do with the company’s operations, but with the companies with which they have been called to cooperate with. As a matter of fact they claim that they have the most experienced flight and ground crews, since the majority of them comes from Olympic Airlines. “EASA wanted to ring a bell to some others and proceeded to the unscheduled control and to the decision of revoking our license”, is what a company member said.

——————————————————–

Then there is this March 2009 article:

http://archive.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=110,dt=27.03.2009,id=60761300

From greek registered airlines, EASA has put in high risk list , Hellas Jet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellas_Jet) and Hellenic Imperial Airlines.

EASA initially activated SAFA (Safety Audit of Foreign Airlines) for the 2 above mentioned airlines and in the final high risk list that issued, HIA ranks 4th and Hellas Jet ranks 8th.

———————————————————–

Now apparently they finally got green light to commence flights? I don’t know. :confused:

I only know one thing. The only 2 greek companies that i would take if i wanted to go to Athens, are Aegean and Olympic (resurrected and probably will be better than before).

The rest… better not. They aren’t even greek really… And if it depended on me, they would not used “hellenic” on their commercial name.

Air Universal (now HIA), was banned from EU flights in 2004:

Safety worries have also led to the banning of Star Air and Air Universal from Sierra Leone and Central Air Express from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/airlines-from-eight-nations-banned-for-poor-safety-records-572500.html

So you change name, and you become “greek” and start over! Isn’t that wonderful?

Thank God the cypriot Helios —> AJet, took so heavy bad pubblicity in Cyprus and Greece that closed for good.

The BHX flight guide stated this..

Hellenic are now planning to commence their service from
Athens on Saturday 4 July 2009

Make of that what you will.

where your information come from…ist from website or other sources

The BHX flight guide stated this..

Hellenic are now planning to commence their service from
Athens on Saturday 4 July 2009

Make of that what you will.

Actually i’ve looked this up, apparently the first service will be saturday July 4th.

did u mean the operation will start on 4th of july…but the info thats i know is no passenger becouse of that the opration was canceled…is that the fact

Are you saying the first service started on June 23rd? If so, then it must of landed before you posted.

haha. No excuse for that kind of mistake! 😮

Actually i’ve looked this up, apparently the first service will be saturday July 4th.

Are you saying the first service started on June 23rd? If so, then it must of landed before you posted.

Last I heard, it was only delayed.

EDIT: 5 minutes of research goes a long way!
On the Hellenic Imperial homepage you can book flights ATH-BHX from 23rd June. I assume it starts then.

why this opration from pirmingham to athena was canceled….please respond as soon as possible

The Iranair B747 is abit hit and miss as most of the time their A300 comes in. Even saw one of their A310’s on Hcam a few weeks ago.

This might be the only scheduled 747-200 service in the UK? 😮

Iran Air still frequently use them on the Heathrow run I believe but that would be the only other scheduled pax service 742.

Besides…..I think I’d rather go to Athens than Tehran :rolleyes::D.

This might be the only scheduled 747-200 service in the UK? 😮

Flights are now on sale!! on the above website….

Lets hope it is successful, it will start on a twice a week service. First ATH-BHX arrives on Saturday 30 May 09, didn’t expect it to arrive that soon!

The Pprune lot dont expect it to last from what I read on there.

Hopefully it will be successful.