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Old 17th Jul 2012, 16:03
  #31 (permalink)  
Cyrano
 
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Ireland
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Airliner747, I am sorry if my response offended you. Let me try to offer some more thoughts, and let me say that I am not based in Greece and have never flown with Hellenic Imperial, so perhaps I am not the best-qualified to answer your question (hopefully other people here will be able to do so). My view of the airline is based on its "public face", for example its website, and on its history of network development.

Here are just a couple of examples of why I don't get a very good impression of the seriousness of the carrier when I look at their website. The last press release on the site is from July 2011 announcing the suspension of flights to Gatwick. Elsewhere on the site I read "the official inaugural flight for our scheduled route between Athens and New York will be on the 24th of June 2011." I find a destination page about Kuwait with a picture of Cape Town, and a broken booking engine. All in all, it looks as though the website has been abandoned - it certainly isn't being kept up to date. Even if a company is no longer selling directly to the public (e.g. if it's an ACMI carrier), surely it shouldn't leave such an unflattering image of itself on show?

In the past, Hellenic Imperial has announced (and IIRC briefly operated) scheduled routes to Birmingham, London, Johannesburg, Jeddah, Casablanca and New York. In terms of scheduled service, it appears to have had huge ambitions but to have been consistently unable to deliver on them. Perhaps it does better with charters, but as I mentioned above, its website gives a completely unprofessional impression.

I hope that explains why I don't have a high opinion of the company. However, as I say, my opinion is based on a view "from the outside", and I hope that someone who has more expertise on the subject can tell you more.
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