Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the outspoken founder of EasyJet, has spent years battling successive CEs at the airline over pay, dividends and fleet expansion. But this week relations between the carrier’s largest shareholder and the board reached, in his words, an “all-time low”; the issue, a disagreement over a multibillion-pound aircraft order with Airbus. Stelios warned that he would personally sue the “scoundrels” if any money was paid to Airbus and the company failed to repay a GBP600m govt coronavirus loan next March. He was further enraged by the airline’s decision to reject his demand for a general shareholders meeting for technical reasons. It was a “dirty trick”, he said, and then fired off a second demand for an investor vote to remove 2 directors from the board. <br/>
unaligned
Richard Branson is trying to convince the UK govt to give his Virgin Atlantic airline a GBP500m bailout to help it survive the coronavirus pandemic and the economic fallout of the lockdown. The billionaire, who also wants GBP700m from the Australian govt to bailout Virgin Australia, has the backing of bosses at Airbus, which makes Virgin’s planes, and Rolls-Royce who have warned ministers that if the airline collapsed it could drag them down too. But Branson’s plea has prompted a substantial backlash, with many pointing out that the entrepreneur has paid the exchequer no personal income tax since moving to the tax free British Virgin Islands 14 years ago. Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said it was unacceptable that “rich billionaires [were] milking the system” at a time of national crisis. <br/>
The founders of Malaysia's AirAsia Group will not take salaries and its staff has agreed to an as much as 75% cut in pay due to the impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak on the airline, its CE said late Saturday. Tony Fernandes said that he and executive chairman Kamarudin Meranun "will not be taking a salary during this period", while staff from across the business "have accepted temporary pay reductions of anywhere between 15-75%, depending on seniority, to share the impact this is having on our business". The airline has no incoming revenue and 96% of its fleet is grounded, Fernandes said. The airline has retained all its staff. AirAsia has also urged customers to accept credit offers for flights canceled instead of refunds. <br/>