easyJet (EZJ) founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou was defeated in his bid to remove the airline’s top executives in a row over a £4.5bn airplane order with Airbus.
Sir Stelios, who is also the airline’s biggest shareholder and owns roughly a third of the company, wrote to the board on 29 March calling for the cancellation of the Airbus order. He has previously described the contract as “the largest single threat to the solvency of the company”. Last month, easyJet said that it had reached an agreement with Airbus to defer the delivery of 24 aircraft. This week, the airline said that it intended to resume some flights from 15 June.
Chairman John Barton, chief executive officer Johan Lundgren, chief financial officer Andrew Findlay and director Andreas Bierwirth all retained their positions. The four motions were all defeated on a verdict of 58-42 per cent of votes cast, with 99 per cent of independent shareholders voting in favour of the board. “The board seeks good relationships with all of the company's shareholders and hopes to be able to re-engage constructively with Sir Stelios," Mr Barton said in a statement.
Sir Stelios questioned the legitimacy of the verdict, adding, “what remains now is for me to carry on the search for the reasons behind this very suspicious love affair between the scoundrels at easyJet and Airbus”. easyJet declined to comment on its founder’s remarks.
