EasyJet founder and largest shareholder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has stepped up his attack on the airline’s management by demanding the removal of chief executive Johan Lundgren and chairman John Barton.
Sir Stelios is furious over a £4.5 billion order with Airbus at a time when the budget airline’s fleet of 337 aircraft is grounded due to the coronavirus crisis.
He claimed that the airline’s bosses “are not telling us at all is how much money the company will burn each week after the resumption of flying which will be well in excess of the £40 million per week that they state that they burn whilst the fleet is grounded.
“Flying half empty planes will be heavily loss making. That £40 million per week of cash burn is before the payments to Airbus.”
He added that the senior management “are now also planning to keep the number of aircraft in the fleet around the same level as now at 337 Airbus aircraft over the next 18 months.
“So they will clearly burn a lot more of our cash in 2021. There is no way the demand for passenger flying in 2021 will be the same as 2019.”
Sir Stelios added: “Holders of easyJet ticket vouchers for future flying should also be worried that they may never get to use them next year and will not see their money back.
“So now I will call for the removal as directors of the CEO Johan Lundgren for sending £1.5 billion of our money to Airbus whilst running an ‘aircraft parking lot’ for nine months.”
Chairman John Barton should also go for refusing to instigate an independent inquiry to investigate the situation surrounding the Airbus order.
Sir Stelios previously called for two other directors to go and wants the chief operating officer to be promoted to chief executive to run the “aircraft parking lot” and to serve notice of termination to Airbus.
“Any attempt to operate a fleet of more than 250 aircraft is bound to just burn a shed load of cash in 2021,” he added, while commenting on the airline’s winter first half trading update when it announced two new loans worth £400 million, taking its total cash balance to £3.3 billion.