stelios haji ioannou yacht

His beginnings, his family, his Foundation.. Sir Stelios opens up in a major interview

The Monegasque resident and easyJet founder spoke at length about the origins of his company, but also about his very special ties with the Principality.

The lengthy discussion took place during a visit to Ireland by the Monegasque resident and his family, with the easyJet founder speaking about the beginnings of his company, but also about the expansion of the “easy” brand across Europe and his many charitable activities.

“It wasn’t always pure fun,” recalls the businessman, speaking about his beginnings. “It was very stressful and risky at times, with a lot of sleepless nights. Thankfully, it worked out. But I still think you have to try and create publicity for a new business through PR. Marketing alone is very expensive.”

Creating a famous brand

Troodos Shipping had a fleet of more than 50 tankers, making Sir Stelios’ father the world’s largest independent ship owner and one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in Europe. But for the founder of easyJet, waiting to inherit his share was not an option. He wanted to think bigger and, above all, make his own mark.

“When I was in my mid-twenties, I had two things that drove me, two motivations. One was to prove to my father and the rest of the world that I wasn’t just a daddy’s boy, because my father was a very successful, self-made shipping magnate. (…) I was determined to prove myself in another industry. The second (…) was that I wanted to build a famous brand. Our family business was in shipping, and because shipping is a B2B industry [ Business to Business, Ed. ], nobody knew what I was doing for a living. I had started my own shipping company in my early 20s, called Stelmar Tankers, but it was also a B2B business and therefore it didn’t become famous. So I set out to create a world-famous brand. That’s what I wanted,” says the businessman.

With that aim, Sir Stelios launched easyJet in 1995: an airline “offering flights within Britain for the same price as a pair of jeans.” A revolution.

Developing the easy empire

An epidemic whose travel restrictions  impacted the airline. The Business Post article recalls that in September 2021, easyJet had to raise over £1 billion via a share issue to recover financially from Covid. Today, Haji-Ioannou and his family still hold a 15% stake in the company , which is valued at around £450 million of the company’s overall £3 billion market value.

As we emerge from the crisis, Business Post naturally asked Sir Stelios about his post-Covid vision of air travel: “I believe that leisure travel is probably going to come back to normal very soon.” But he believes it may be different for business travel. “I’ve learned that predicting the future is always risky, but maybe all of these Teams and Zoom calls that we do will change things.”

But the easy group has more than one string to its bow. As witnessed by the many other subsidiaries, such as easyHotel, easyCar, easyMoney or easyStorage. The concept, as summarised by the Irish newspaper, is simple: any company in any sector can apply to Sir Stelios for a licence to use the brand for their product or service. In exchange for this visibility, the company pays a licence fee to easyGroup.

“The best business idea I had was starting a low-cost airline. The second-best business idea I had was keeping the ‘easy’ name in my private company, so I could expand the brand and retain ownership of the name,” says Sir Stelios, before turning to a part of the group he is particularly excited about: easyHotel, which he considers the most “logical” extension of the brand.

“I think it’s a great brand. And it is a business that institutional investors and private equity funds have invested significant sums of money into to build hotels in the easy brand,” Sir Stelios enthuses, revealing that there are some 50 hotels in operation or under construction, notably in Dublin.

Very personal ties with Monaco

It would seem that Ireland was not a random destination for the entrepreneur’s trip, since it is the birthplace of his partner, Orla Murphy, who he met for the first time… in Monaco!

The article explains that the two met at a party at Sir Stelios’ Monaco home during a F1 Grand Prix. Orla Murphy moved to the Principality in 2008, where she worked as a sales executive for an interior design company that specialised in yachts and private aviation. The couple had a baby girl, now four and a half years old, born two days after the 2018 edition of the same Grand Prix!

Memories and ties that explain why, among the many causes supported by Sir Stelios, some are based in the Principality . The article concludes with a few words about the entrepreneur’s charitable work. Since 2011, the Stelios Foundation has been the focus of much of the entrepreneur’s time. 

“I work almost 60 hours a week, every week of the year, even over the festive season. I try to divide those 60 hours into three parts. (…) The last third is spent “giving back to society. The recurring revenues from the easyGroup have made it possible for me to give to charity regularly. I really believe that if you are lucky enough to make some money in life, you have to give some of it back to society, which is why I signed the giving pledge.”

This pledge is that Sir Stelios will bequeath half of his estate to his Foundation upon his death.  “So it’s not to make one big bang donation,” he says. “It will endow the foundation with capital that can be invested wisely to produce income and spend that income on good causes in perpetuity. I’d like to think that if I can endow my foundation with enough funds, it can continue to do good in my name. That will be my legacy. I think it’s important, how you are remembered. You have a duty to do good in your own lifetime, but I decided to structure the foundation in this way so that the giving back carries on after the end of my natural life.”

This translates into various actions, for example in the fight against hunger in Greece, the struggle for peace in Cyprus , where his parents are from, or more recently, gifts for hospital staff in Greece, Cyprus, Great Britain and Monaco during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Different causes, but with a common thread: the countries supported are those with which Sir Stelios has a personal bond: “some problems are too big and too far away geographically. We prefer to give back to the four or five countries that I spend my time in,” he concludes.

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou awards Young Entrepreneurs in Cyprus for second year

For the second year, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, creator and owner of the easy family of brands and founder and president of the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation, awarded young entrepreneurship in Cyprus by presenting the "Stelios Awards for Young Entrepreneurs in Cyprus 2024”, during a ceremony held on Wednesday at the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation in Nicosia.

The full text of the news item is available in the paid version of the CNA web service. Sign in

Φιλανθρωπικό Ίδρυμα Στέλιος Χατζηιωάννου

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou official CV

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou official CV Updated 12 August 2022

Stelios is best known for creating the easy family of brands starting with easyJet in 1994 when he was just 27. Six years later he floated the airline on the www.londonstockexchange.com in order to fund growth but he and his family remain the largest shareholders holding about 26% of the shares. The stock market currently values easyJet PLC at about £4.7 billion. When the COVID Pandemic struck the airline was carrying about 100 million passengers per year but the numbers are now substantially reduced. The Stelios Philanthropic Foundation’s mission is to support a diverse range of charitable activities, primarily in places where the founder has lived and worked – the UK, Greece, Cyprus and Monaco.

The easy family of brands www.easy.com and easyHistory.info > During the IPO process Stelios made the strategic decision to retain ownership of the easy brand, (including easyJet) in his private investment vehicle, easyGroup, based in Monaco and London. As a result, easyGroup now enjoys a steadier income from licensing the easy brand to many other businesses, including the airline. Every time a ticket is bought on easyJet, easyGroup collects 0.25% of its transaction value as a royalty, which is a more resilient income stream than dividend payments. Since 1994 the easy family of brands has been extended to many other activities – all offering consumers “more value for less”. Other brands include: easyHotel.com , easyBus.com , easyCar.com , easyFly.travel , easyHub.com , easyMoney.com , easyProperty.com , easyGym.com , easyStorage.com and many others. Stelios is always looking for carefully selected business partners and entrepreneurs with whom to work to jointly extend the easy family of brands.

Charity work: Stelios started giving back to society when he turned 40 years old and has since formalised his charitable giving by creating the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation ( www.stelios.org ) , which now takes up about a third of his time. Its mission statement is to support a diverse range of charitable activities principally in the countries where he has lived and worked: UK, Greece, Cyprus and Monaco. The most notable program is “Food from the heart” that in normal times (pre-COVID) feeds 200,000 people with a snack each month in Greece and Cyprus since 2013. https://steliosfoundation.gr/faghto-apo-kardias . In addition since 2008 the Foundation’s bi-communal awards programme in Cyprus gives €500,000 annually to Greek and Turkish Cypriots, who work together for a lasting peace on the island https://steliosfoundation.com.cy/peace-cyprus-bicommunal-awards/ . Sadly, this program is paused because of COVID but the Foundation has given to many pandemic related causes that include thank you gifts in the form of shop vouchers to front line nurses and carers. Other good causes are supported with regular donations. Environmental charity wwf.org is a major beneficiary in partnership with HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco’s own foundation. ( fpa2.org ). In May 2017 Stelios signed the Giving Pledge ( https://givingpledge.org/Pledger.aspx?id=334 ) committing to endow his Foundation with half his estate in order to become the perpetual vehicle for his legacy. This initiative was started in 2010 by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet.

Family business background : Stelios, was born in Athens, Greece on 14 February 1967, the son of the late Loucas Haji-Ioannou, a self-made Greek-Cypriot shipping magnate. Stelios started his business career working for his father at Troodos Shipping in Piraeus, Greece until aged 25 when he founded his own shipping firm, Stelmar tankers with financial help from his father. Stelmar floated on the NYSE.com in 2001 and was sold to a competitor in 2005 for about US$1.3bn.

Honours : In 2006, at the age of 39, Stelios received a knighthood from HM Queen Elizabeth II. Since 2009 he has been the Honorary General Consul for the Republic of Cyprus in the Principality of Monaco – where he lives. He graduated from the www.doukas.gr High School in Athens in 1984, the London School of Economics ( lse.ac.uk ) in 1987 and in 1988 obtained a MSc from the City University ( www.cass.city.ac.uk ) . All three academic institutions currently benefit from Stelios Philanthropic Foundation donations via scholarships – the individual recipients are known as Stelios Scholars! These number more than 260 to date. Since 2018 he has acted as Chair of the enterprise fellows of the Prince’s Trust in the UK, a charity set up by HRH The Prince of Wales. https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/support-our-work/major-gifts/enterprise-fellowship/members . In 2016 he founded the www.Gustaviayachtclub.org where he is Commodore. 

Stelios Haji-Ioannou CV Updated 19may23 in Greek

Ο Στέλιος Χατζηιωάννου γεννήθηκε στην Αθήνα το 1967. Φοίτησε στα εκπαιδευτήρια Δούκα, το 1984 συνέχισε τις σπουδές του στο London School of Economics και έπειτα στο City University.

Έγινε ευρύτερα γνωστός ως ο δημιουργός της οικογένειας σημάτων easy ( easy family of brands in English), ξεκινώντας με την αεροπορική εταιρεία easyJet.com  το 1994, σε ηλικία μόλις 27 ετών. Έξι χρόνια αργότερα έβαλε την easyJet.com στο London Stock Exchange προκειμένου να χρηματοδοτήσει την αύξηση του στόλου της από 16 σε 330 αεροσκάφη Airbus, που σήμερα μεταφέρουν σχεδόν 100 εκατομμύρια επιβάτες ετησίως.

Στρατηγικά, ο Στέλιος διατήρησε την ιδιοκτησία του σήματος easyJet.com στη δική του ιδιωτική εταιρεία και επέκτεινε το easy family of  brands σε άλλους τομείς, όπως οι easyHotel.com , easyCar.com , easyFerry.com και πολλούς άλλους. Μπορείτε να βρείτε ένα σύντομο βίντεο για το επιχειρηματικό μοντέλο της easy family of brands στην ιστοσελίδα easyHistory.info .

Ο Στέλιος Haji-Ioannou  χρησιμοποιεί τη σταθερή ροή εσόδων από τα πνευματικά δικαιώματα της easy family of  brands για να χρηματοδοτήσει το φιλανθρωπικό του έργο μέσω του Φιλανθρωπικού Ιδρύματος Στέλιος Χατζηιωάννου. Το εμβληματικό πρόγραμμα στην Ελλάδα είναι το “Φαγητό από Καρδιάς” όπου από το 2014 προσφέρει ένα snack σε δεκάδες χιλιάδες ανθρώπους που το έχουν ανάγκη και το ζητούν κάθε εργάσιμη ημέρα μέσα από 7 σημεία διανομής στην Αθήνα. 

Από το 2008 δίνει κάθε χρόνο σε νέους επιχειρηματίες στην Ελλάδα βραβεία με χρηματικό έπαθλο προκειμένου να ενθαρρύνει περισσότερες start-up επιχειρήσεις στην ελληνική οικονομία. Από πέρυσι το Φιλανθρωπικό Ίδρυμα Στέλιος Χατζηιωάννου ξεκίνησε ένα πρόγραμμα με την BCA, δίνοντας 7 υποτροφίες σε σπουδαστές που θέλουν να αποκτήσουν το πιστοποιητικό του “yacht chef” . Τα μαθήματα πραγματοποιούνται σε πλωτό campus, το οικογενειακό σκάφος του αείμνηστου Λουκά Χατζηιωάννου (πατέρα του Στέλιου) με την ονομασία KLELIA 1 στη μαρίνα Ζέα.

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Naming and commissioning of TS Sir Stelios

On 13th September, hundreds gathered at St Katherine Dock to witness the naming and commissioning of our new yacht 'TS Sir Stelios', kindly provided by the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation.   Businessman and philanthropist Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, best known for the easyJet low-cost airline as well as his 'easy' family of brands, was joined by cadets at the ceremony to name the new green and blue ship. He said, "I am honoured and delighted that my philanthropic foundation has been given the opportunity to help out young people who go to sea.  I wish the Training Ship Sir Stelios and all her future crews a fair wind and God speed for bright and successful times to come."   The Rustler 42 yacht - so named because it is 42 feet long - will enable more cadets to take part in transformational voyages at sea and enjoy the thrill and challenges of sailing first hand. Through a range of bursaries Sea Cadets endeavours to offer all it's cadets, regardless of their background, to embark on this trip of a lifetime.   Martin Coles, CEO said, "We are not simply celebrating a beautiful new yacht or the opportunity for cadets to go sailing. We are celebrating the addition of this new yacht as a platform or vehicle through which we are able to offer young people the Sea Cadet Experience.   "It is this experience that delivers the real purpose of our charity, helping young people at the most challenging times in their lives as they travel that tortuous journey from child to adult in an often overwhelming world. “Adventure that launches young people for life today."   Captain Sea Cadets Captain Phil Russell also attended the ceremony, and said, "The difference you see in these young people after they've been away at sea is really remarkable. Being out of their comfort zone and realising how capable they are is such a great experience, and you see the confidence shining out of them when they return."   We would like to thank the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation, and of course Sir Stelios himself,  for believing in Sea Cadets and helping us to continue to deliver the Sea Cadets experience to young people all over the country.

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Profile: Stelios Haji-Ioannou: Travel's agent orange

He's not yet 30, he owns a shipping line and he faces a manslaughter charge. david bowen meets a very unusual airline proprietor, article bookmarked.

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Stelios Haji-Ioannou knows how to enjoy himself. He likes to spend his weekends on his 110ft yacht, scuba-diving around the Greek islands. Weekdays he spends in Luton Airport.

The stocky, cheerful Haji-Ioannou is the latest in a long line of entrepreneurs who have decided to shake up air travel. He started his own airline, easyJet, last November and is busy raising its profile in the most aggressive way he can. His headquarters at Luton are painted orange; so are his aircraft, the only ones in the world with huge telephone numbers on their fuselages. His (orange) advertising is less than subtle, too: it is designed to irritate travel agents - whom he does not use - and to tell you loudly that easyJet will sell you a flight ticket for just pounds 29.

But Haji-Ioannou is unusual in other ways. He is probably the only airline proprietor who also owns a shipping line. He is probably the only airline proprietor who has yet to reach his fourth decade - he is 29. And he is certainly the only airline proprietor who has a possible 12-year sentence for manslaughter hanging over him.

Which leads us back to that yacht. EasyJet has so far spent pounds 25m, all of which has come from Haji-Ioannou's family. His father, Loucas, came from a poor family in the Troodos mountains of Cyprus. He bought his first ship in 1959 and, with a stroke of bold counter-cyclical buying in the 1980s, built up the biggest tanker fleet in the world.

As a result Stelios, his brother Polys and his sister Clelia were born with solid platinum spoons in their mouths. This explains the yacht, but does not explain why he works 16 hours a day rather than wallowing full time in the good life. "I've always been conscientious and hardworking," he says. "I've never wasted time." There is also, he says, an element of proving himself to dad.

The next question is: why has he moved into airlines, an industry that has destroyed more bold ambitions than any other?

Why, in particular, has he decided to "do a Laker" - a doom-laden expression if there ever was one - by competing entirely on price?

To answer that, we need to look at Haji-Ioannou's career so far. He was brought up in Athens and, when he was a teenager, decided he wanted to set off on a well-trodden path for wealthy Greeks - to London, and specifically to the London School of Economics. After getting an economics degree, he took a masters in shipping, trade and finance at City University Business School. In the process he was so indoctrinated in business school practices that he grew impatient with the Greek way. "I like organised things," he says. "I don't like the corruption and slowness of Greece."

Leaving London in 1988, he joined his father's business. "I imagined I would spend all my life in shipping," he says. But he had been seriously infected with business-schoolitis and soon found himself drawing up a plan for his own company. It would be for up-market tankers, which would carry more valuable products and thus charge higher rates. Where most business school graduates would leave their model on the computer, he was in a position to translate it into solid steel. Dad came up with $50m and, in 1992, Haji-Ioannou set up Stelmar. The year before this, however, disaster struck. A giant Troodos Maritime tanker, the Haven, blew up in Genoa harbour killing five crewmen and creating one of the Mediterranean's biggest environmental disasters. Stelios, still only 23, found himself accused with his father and another executive of manslaughter.

The Italian legal process is still grinding through. "Early on, it was like a sword of Damocles," he says. Now he is more relaxed; he expects the civil action to be settled in about six months and the criminal case to be dropped at the same time.

Haji-Ioannou claims the accident has made him obsessive about safety. "It taught me that you should always prepare for the worst."

He spent a couple of years building up Stelmar before the market flattened and then decided it was time to do something a little more exciting. Friends in Athens who ran a Virgin franchise asked him to invest in their operation. He was unimpressed but sufficiently intrigued to start producing business models for a possible new airline.

He travelled to the United States where he was particularly taken by the relentlessly profitable South West Airlines in Dallas. It used a combination of rock-bottom costs and rock-bottom fares to attract people who otherwise would not be able to fly. Haji-Ioannou reckoned the same approach could work in Europe because, as he explains in business-speak, "the elasticity of demand for air travel is greater than one". In other words, cut the price and extra passengers will more than make up the revenue.

He returned to his spreadsheet and developed the business concept that became easyJet. Once again his father agreed to help him, with pounds 8m to capitalise the company. EasyJet started flying between Luton and Scotland last November and has already sold 250,000 seats. It is now expanding its routes - to Amsterdam, Nice and Barcelona. "My father doesn't know about airlines but he's proud of me," Haji-Ioannou says.

The phone number on the fuselage is a clue to his central tenet: cut out the travel agent. "The traditional ticketing system is great if you need flexibility but it adds a layer of cost," he says. Unless you intend to change planes, you do not need the flexibility a traditional IATA ticket brings. Get rid of the ticket and you have escaped the airline reservation systems and, with them, the travel agents plugged into them. "The whole concept of the travel agent is absurd," he says. "They appear to be agents of the traveller but are actually agents of the airlines." EasyJet, he says, is the only airline that has never paid a penny to travel agents.

Without agents, he has to rely on direct sales - which explains the phone numbers and the pounds 2m he has spent on advertising. Passengers ring up, pay by credit card, and are sent a receipt with a confirmation number. When they turn up at the airport they give the number, show identification, and off they go.

His obsession with abolishing paper goes beyond tickets. Every document that comes into his headquarters is scanned into the computer system, then binned. His entire administrative staff of 12 people fits in one room - he in one corner, his finance department of two in another.

The other big cost saving is to use Luton, which has been losing scheduled airlines and is offering rock-bottom landing fees. "The differential with Heathrow is pounds 10 per passenger," Haji-Ioannou says.

The pricing system is real business school stuff. If you book early for a Scottish flight, you pay pounds 29 one way. The later you book, the more you pay - up to pounds 59. EasyJet ratchets up the more popular flights fast, so to get a pounds 29 ticket on a busy Friday flight, you would have to book weeks ahead. On a mid-week flight, you might still get it the day before. Haji-Ioannou says that half the tickets sold so far have gone for pounds 29 - though passengers might be upset to find that there is also a pounds 5 airport tax.

The choice of routes is important. "We aim for those with high prices, reasonable volume and little competition," he says. UK domestic routes fit the bill but why the highly competitive London-Amsterdam? "It's the biggest route from London after Paris," he says. "And our price - pounds 35 - is particularly cheap for people flying from Holland." Nevertheless, some travel industry experts are worried that easyJet may be expanding too fast into routes in which it does not have a sufficiently clear price advantage.

Haji-Ioannou has just paid pounds 17m for a relatively youthful Boeing 737, and is keen to emphasise the safety of his three-strong fleet. "If you think safety is expensive, try an accident," he says with some feeling.

He is not, he says, concerned that he will crash land as did Freddie Laker ("a bit of a legend for me"). His computer tells him his model works better on short-haul than long-haul flights, and he does not believe he will be troubled by dirty tricks from other airlines. "BA has learned its lesson," he says.

When easyJet is established, history suggests he will look for something else to do. "When we get to eight or 10 aircraft, it could be the right time to float," he says. Judging from his other interest, it seems likely he will head off computerwards.

This weekend he is flying to Athens and hopes to spend time on his yacht. He will travel with British Airways. Would it not be convenient if easyJet flew to Athens? "It doesn't fit into our model," he says. Business school 1; Greece 0.

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ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR: STELIOS HAJI-IOANNOU

Entrepreneur of the Year: Stelios Haji-Ioannou

By Jennifer Conlin

• Jan. 22, 2006

STELIOS HAJI-IOANNOU is the son of a Greek shipping tycoon and the founder of easyJet P.L.C., a budget airline he started in 1995 at the age of 28. Last year, easyJet flew 30 million passengers, making it one of the largest short-haul airlines in Europe. Since then, Mr. Haji-Ioannou has started 14 other ventures through his private investment venture, easyGroup, and licenses the "easy" brand name to ventures like easyHotel and easyInternet Cafe. His most recent project, easyCruise, was started last summer on the French and Italian Rivieras and is now offering cruises in the Caribbean, operating out of Barbados and with stops in St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Grenada, St. Lucia and Martinique. The average age of easyCruise customers in its first season was 32. This conversation took place on Jan. 10 in London.

When you think of your target easyCruise customer, what type of person are you picturing?

Someone young. My research showed their biggest objection to cruising was that it was a lot of old people. So I thought, "Give them their own ship." The younger people are not willing to spend $5,000 on a cruise. And they do not want to be held captive on the ship, so we have a two-night minimum stay. By not making the ship a floating resort, we have been able to keep the price low. Instead, it is a floating hotel that we keep in port at night so people can eat onboard if they wish or go ashore. And everything is a la carte so they can choose what services they want.

In the same way you took on British Airways when you started easyJet, you seem more than happy to go up against Carnival Cruise Lines. Do you like controversy?

I said that Carnival's ships have tacky ballrooms and are full of old folks, which made Micky Arison pretty angry. [Mr. Arison is chief executive of Carnival Cruise Lines.] I am a great believer that to make a difference in people's lives you are probably going to have to ruffle some feathers. One of our brand models is to take on the big boys.

Someone once said that you look at traditional industries and then blow them to pieces by figuring out a way to do them cheaper and more efficiently? Do you think that is a fair assessment of your business philosophy?

I can't promise to blow all of them apart. But I think it is a compliment when the big boys are taking notice. It is also a convenient way of differentiating our product from the more traditional products.

How do your best ideas originate?

It is a lot of trial and error, observing, traveling and using my personal experience from other industries. With the cruise line, I came up with the idea of staying in port at night from my personal experience and memories of private yachting. I grew up being on boats because my father had a yacht. What do you do with a yacht? You sail during the day and go into port at night, which is not the itinerary of traditional cruises. Cruising in the middle of the night is not pleasant. You look out at a dark sea. Sailing during daylight and arriving in the afternoon is better. You actually see views.

You emphasize low cost. When do you think luxury should not be sacrificed?

Everyone is different, but for me I would feel embarrassed within Europe on short-haul flights to be in business class. But when I fly to Miami from London I want business class because I want to sleep. If you are going to spend one night in a city and have business meetings, then a budget easyHotel is fine, but I don't think you should spend your honeymoon in an easyHotel. What a scary thought!

Would you bring the easyHotels to America?

Yes. I am thinking of franchising it in New York, where we are in negotiations, and perhaps Miami.

You are often mentioned in the same breath as Richard Branson, who is now also going into the cruise market. What do you think you have in common, and how do you think you are different?

There is no doubt in my mind that I have been inspired by him. I wanted to start an airline because I thought that Branson was having fun running an airline. But the business model came from Southwest -- so I think that Herb Kelleher is more of a hero there. Taking the brand bigger is something I learned from Branson. But Virgin is more of a luxury brand and easyGroup is more of the money-for-value brand. He is saying that his cruise product is for people in their forties who are too old to rock 'n' roll and too young to tango. Hopefully, they are too young for Carnival and too old for easyCruise.

You once said you wanted to paint the whole world orange, your company's signature color. Do you ever grow weary of that bold orange color?

I know where you are coming from about the color. Let me give you a hint. Maybe the next ship will have less orange. I am not saying there is anything wrong with orange, but we can debate the quantity of orange. Maybe not every square foot has to be orange. But we want to be faithful to the brand, and the color is part of that. It tells people we are about value for money and fun. ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR: STELIOS HAJI-IOANNOU

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Cruise And Ferry

Ship that launched Sir Stelios’ EasyCruise dream gets cut up for scrap in Dubai

Former EasyCruiseOne is one of two failed cruise to yacht conversions that are being recycled in the Middle East business hub

Rain could not dampen the enthusiasm of Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou back in 2005 when the Greek serial entrepreneur showed off the first what was intended to be the first of many cruise ships for his EasyCruise venture that applied the principles of his EasyJet low cost airline to bring ultra-cheap cruising to the masses.

Today that cruise ship, the 4,100-gt EasyCruiseOne (built 1990, renamed Cruise One) is being cut down for scrap on the dry berth it has been sitting on for over decade waiting for its conversion into a luxury mega-yacht.

Another long abandoned partly converted mega-yacht sitting next to the Cruise One, the former 3,400-gt former Greek cruise ship Maria Kosmas (1981) has already been dismantled, Dubai shipyard sources told TradeWinds.

Sir Stelios’ big cruise ambitions did not last long.

The EasyCruiseOne, which was built for high-end operator Renaissance Cruises, had spent several years in Asian waters as a run-down casino ship before Sir Stelios became its owner.

Stripped of its faded luxury trappings for 140 passengers, the ship was fitted with bare-bones accommodation for double that number. Always intended as a pathfinder vessel, it was replaced by a larger ship within three years, although the EasyCruise venture did not last much longer.

The EasyCruiseOne was sold in 2008 to a shipowning vehicle linked to Platinum Yacht Management, a company best known for looking after the yachts belonging to Dubai’s ruling family.

The plan was to strip out the EasyCruise orange decor and fill the ship with all the luxury trappings required by royalty. But, with the world in a financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, the project stalled before it began.

According to cruise brokers, the untouched ship was put back on the sales market, but buyers baulked at the high asking price, especially since they would need to spend huge amounts of cash to rebuild the interior of the ship to an acceptable standard for the cruising public. EasyCruise passengers had made do with matrasses on the floor of their miniscule cabins.

And so the Cruise One sat baking in the hot sun as the years passed.

Keeping the ship company on the dry berth at Dubai Maritime City’s common user shipyard facility was the former Vergina Cruises ship Maria Kosmas.

A former Australian navy hydrographic survey vessel, it was converted into a cruise vessel by the Greek cruise operator in 1993. The Maria Kosmas was not a successful ship for Vergina. It had been laid up near Piraeus for several years by the time was it purchased by a Middle Eastern buyer in 2002.

Soon after it was moved to Dubai for conversion into the yacht Cosmos. Extensive steel work was done, and all that was left was for the interior to be installed.

But then the project was called off and the partially rebuilt ship was shunted off into lay-up.

Rumours circulated by yachting industry sources at the time the project stalled suggested that the owner’s eye had turned to another mega-yacht that he decided to buy instead.

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Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou: Official Biography

Updated 12 August 2022 Stelios is best known for creating the easy family of brands beginning with easyJet in 1994 when he was just 27. Six years later he floated the airline on the www.londonstockexchange.com in order to fund the airline’s growth however he and his family remain the largest shareholders holding around 15% of the shares. The stock market currently values easyJet PLC at about £3.1 billion. When the COVID pandemic struck the airline was carrying about 100 million passengers per year and numbers were substantially reduced but are now recovering..

The easy family of brands

Charity work:.

Stelios started giving back to society when he turned 40 years old and has since formalised his charitable giving by creating the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation ( www.stelios.org ) , which now takes up about a third of his time. Its mission statement is to support a diverse range of charitable activities principally in the countries where he has lived and worked: UK, Greece, Cyprus and Monaco. The most notable program is “Food from the heart” that in normal times (pre-COVID) feeds 200,000 people with a snack each month in Greece and Cyprus since 2013. https://steliosfoundation.gr/faghto-apo-kardias . In addition since 2008 the Foundation’s bi-communal awards programme in Cyprus gives €500,000 annually to Greek and Turkish Cypriots, who work together for a lasting peace on the island https://steliosfoundation.com.cy/peace-cyprus-bicommunal-awards/ . Sadly, this program is paused because of COVID but the Foundation has given to many pandemic related causes that include thank you gifts in the form of shop vouchers to front line nurses and carers. Other good causes are supported with regular donations. Environmental charity wwf.org is a major beneficiary in partnership with HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco’s own foundation. ( fpa2.org ). In May 2017 Stelios signed the Giving Pledge ( https://givingpledge.org/Pledger.aspx?id=334 ) committing to endow his Foundation with half his estate in order to become the perpetual vehicle for his legacy. This initiative was started in 2010 by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet.

Family business background:

easyGroup , founded in 1998, is the private investment vehicle owned by Stelios that manages the ' easy ' brand and launches new businesses.

Stelmar Shipping

Stelmar Shipping was Stelios' first company which successfully floated on the New York Stock Exchange in 2001.

Sir Stelios and members of GYC raise 15,520 EURO at clubhouse charity dinner on 6Jan22 in aid of SNSM.

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Commodore of the Gustavia Yacht Club was delighted to personally host the first event of 2022. A charity buffet dinner, in aid of the brave volunteers of SNSM https://www.snsm.org/ . 

Event was held at the clubhouse in Gustavia on Thursday 6th January 2022.

The fundraiser was a success. Total funds raised 15,520 EUROs, including the matching donation from the Stelios Foundation and the proceeds of the photos from our contest in 2021.

Captain Jermoe Pellerin of SNSM gave an informative speech to the attending members and exchanged insignia with the commodore of our club.  

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