He wanted particularly to visit the Georgian mountain tribes - Tush, Khevsurs, Ratchuelians and Svans - to discover if they shared a common mountain culture, and to test the old idea of the Caucasus as an impenetrable barrier from sea to sea.
Today - twenty years after the son of a shipping tycoon took on British Airways with two rented planes - Stelios's airline is a multi-billion pound company and a household name. This is the inside story of the spectacular rise of easyJet. Did the airline really buy its uniforms from a Benetton store? What was secretly stashed in the toilets at easyLand? Why was Aberdeen airport littered with half-bottles of cheap whisky? The answers to these questions and more are contained in this blow-by-blow account of how an orange start-up began its journey to becoming one of the world's most successful airlines.