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 Who Changed the Face of Shipping," and the accompanying photos prominently featured Aristotle Onassis.
The shipping group founded by Aristotle Onassis during the interwar period defined the course of global and Greek shipping in the 20th century. He is one of those pioneering shipowners who paved the way and changed the structures and operation of the shipping business. He contributed decisively to innovative actions, such as opening up to oil markets and tankers at an early stage, opening up to shipping finance from the American money market, promoting the development of technology and the gigantism of tankers in shipyards in America, Europe, and Asia, forming a new model of organization and management of international shipping companies, and so on.
Beyond maritime transport, Aristotle Onassis also invested in air transport, creating one of the few private airline companies in the world at that time with a global network, Olympic Airways, which, among other things, marked 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 GRT plowing the oceans and an airline fleet of 30 aircraft with a carrying capacity of three million passengers annually soaring the skies, 240 companies operating them 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 dollars (2020 purchasing value).
