Aristotle Onassis is the most famous shipowner of the 20th century, the man who embodies the archetype of the shipping magnate, the symbol of Greek entrepreneurship on a global level. On January 1, 2000, the main article of Lloyd's List magazine was titled "Giants that changed the image of shipping," and the dominant photo accompanying it was that of Aristotle Onassis.
The shipping group founded by Aristotle Onassis during the Interwar period determined the course of global and Greek shipping in the 20th century. He was one of those pioneering shipowners who opened up new paths and changed the structures and operations of the shipping industry. He made decisive contributions to innovative actions, such as the opening of oil markets and tanker ships in an early period, the opening to maritime financing from the American financial market, the promotion of technology development and the gigantism of tankers in shipyards in America, Europe, and Asia, the shaping of a new model of organization and management of international shipping companies, etc.
In addition to maritime transportation, Aristotle Onassis also invested in aviation, creating one of the few private airlines in the world at that time with a global network, Olympic Airways, which, among other things, sealed the development of tourism in Greece. In the early 1970s, he had a commercial fleet of 80 ships with a capacity of 2.5 million DWT that sailed the oceans, and an air fleet of 30 aircraft with a transport capacity of three million passengers annually that soared the skies. He had 240 companies operating in 12 countries and three continents, with approximately 10,000 employees on land and sea. His fortune in 1975 was estimated at $2.6 billion (2020 purchasing power).
