Former Helios owners defend current management

THE FORMER commercial manager of Helios, whose family set up the airline in 1999, said yesterday the airline was not a cowboy outfit.

Andreas Christodoulides told the Cyprus Mail that as the airline had been sold it would not be appropriate for him to comment on the tragedy. “All I can say is that this is very upsetting,” he said. “What happened was a tragic accident, but I think the exaggerations have gone too far,” he added, commenting on the wild speculation in the Cypriot and Greek media.

When Helios was set up, the majority shareholder in the privately owned airline was Cypriot shipowner Kyriacos Mouskos, while Swiss investors held the remaining shares.

Christodoulides said that the current Helios president Andreas Drakos and general manager Demetris Pantazis, who was senior manager at Cyprus Airways for more that two decades, were “very serious people”.

“They are not cowboys,” he said. “Mr Pantazis has an engineering background himself.”

Christodoulides said the Helios fleet was always very well maintained. “We had not one single problem with that plane,” he said, referring to the Boeing 737-300 involved in the crash.

The plane had received its annual overhaul in the UK from November 28 to December 11, after the airline had been sold to Libra.

It was four days later that the plane developed decompression problems on the return flight from Warsaw, after which it was grounded for another week for checks.
“I can’t comment on the investigation,” said Christodoulides. “The crash is still a mystery.”

He said, however, that the engineering contractors used by Helios in the UK, ATC Lasham were “one of the best”.

The engineering company yesterday confirmed that it was providing maintenance services to Helios “to international standards and regulatory standards and in compliance with the aircraft manufacturer’s recommendations”.

“ATC deeply regret the loss of flight ZU522 and are working closely with the investigating authorities to establish the cause of the accident,” a statement said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.