Onassis Era
F1. Maritime HistoryDefinition
Mid-twentieth century rise of Greek tanker tycoons.
The Onassis era denotes the post-1945 rise of Greek shipowners who built large independent tanker fleets, named for Aristotle Onassis (1906 to 1975). Onassis bought surplus wartime Liberty and T2 tankers cheaply, registered them under flags of convenience such as Panama and Liberia, and ordered some of the first supertankers; his 1953 Saudi tanker agreement drew a US legal challenge. Greek owners, with Stavros Niarchos and others, came to control one of the largest merchant fleets in the world.
Source: Aristotle Onassis fleet history; Liberian and Panamanian open-registry growth, late 1940s to 1950s.