Sir Stelios buries hatchet with easyJet management

The Monegasque resident finally supported the purchase of 56 new aircraft from the manufacturer Airbus, after several years of fierce opposition.

The standoff seems to be nearing a conclusion. After almost a decade of feuding with the board of easyJet, the airline he founded in 1995, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou finally announced his intention to settle the dispute at the end of July, according to the Financial Times.

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At stake: the purchase of 56 new Airbus A320neo and 18 A321neo aircraft at a cost of over six billion dollars. The billionaire and Monegasque resident was fiercely opposed at the time to an order placed in 2013, which originally included 107 aircraft, to the point of threatening to sue “the scoundrels” at the helm of the company.

The order was revised in 2020, but once again drew strong criticism from Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who, given the Covid-19 pandemic and its significant financial fallout, would have preferred it to be cancelled altogether. However after almost a decade of fighting, the billionaire has, again according to the Financial Times, changed his mind, considering that the time has come to order more planes to update the current fleet. According to the financial daily paper, EasyJet even managed to obtain a reduction in the cost of the transaction, without giving any details.

Welcoming the purchase, which was finally voted through by Sir Stelios and the other shareholders, easyJet chairman Stephen Hester said he was confident of future economic benefits for the company.

The new order should make it possible to replace old aircraft with high maintenance costs. The new models should also enable easyJet to reduce its CO2 emissions, with fuel optimisation of 25%.

As a reminder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has not been involved in the day-to-day management of the low-cost operator since 2010, but remains one of the shareholders, with a 15% stake.