Curiously there is currently an A319 heading in the opposite direction (SEN-NCL). Is this taking the crew up to operate the ferries?

FR also seem to be flying a few aircraft around between bases today.

That is correct.

An extraordinary letter from Stelios to the Board of easyJet has been published today. He demands the cancellation of the outstanding order for 107 aircraft from Airbus, stating that their deployment will be unprofitable. If he doesn't get consideration of this plan, he intends to call EGMs every 7 weeks to challenge the non-exec Directors one by one, until a largely new Board accepts his proposition.
Full letter here::

What's his beef wth Andreas Bierwirth (the former Germanwings/Austrian executive)? Or has he been picked randomly as Stelios' first victim?

On this occasion I think he has a valid point if there is any wriggle room in the contract!

While he has a point, this is “standard Stelios” in that he has frequently opposed fleet expansion. It might help if he and the other shareholders returned their recent dividend payment.

Yes, I recall it's not the first time Sir Stelios has objected to orders being placed. I'm not sure if souring relations with Airbus over this is the way forward, especially given that Boeing's alternative offering is currently grounded. The best he can probably hope for is deferrals on upcoming deliveries if it means payments are, in turn, deferred; though I expect there's lots of factors at play with fleet acquisitions besides how much it will cost to buy them. Some of their oldest A319's still in the fleet are almost 15 years old - how much would it cost to put one of them through a heavy check for instance?

Without going back into the specifics, I also agree that Sir Stelios and other shareholders aren't painting themselves in a positive light at the moment taking money on the one hand and one of them demanding they cancel orders instead of asking for government help on the other hand.

his self interest is clearly not aligned with what the directors see as the interests of the organisation

Don't think it would be a good use of any bailout money if it allowed Easyjet to buy a new fleet of aircraft and a new HQ. Don't think it would be a good use of government money to bail out Easyjet Europe and Easyjet Switzerland as they are not even British companies. They just have a parent company that is UK based.

Easyjet need to cut planned expenditure to the bone before putting out the begging bowl.

and that is exactly what is being done

How is a loan on commercial terms - ie paying interest to the creditor - a begging bowl.

Unfortunately there’s plenty of comments from people with no real knowledge on this site. Just humour them!

Stelios is currently being panned in the Daily Mail. Whatever your views on easy or indeed Stelios or indeed the rights or wrongs of legitimate payouts....There will be a massive backlash post this nightmare over the extraordinary greed of some individuals versus the selfless behaviour and professionalism of doctors, nurses, hospital workers etc. Stelios, Branson et al might want to revisit the definition of karma regardless of their personal and obscene fortunes.

You do wonder why these people need tens of millions. What do they do with it? It just amazes me the amounts of money that some people take as pay or dividends, I think there is only so much you can spend without just throwing it around needlessly. And I believe in capitalism.

Money doesn't always buy happiness........

I agree TB. Mrs Olster and I were having a discussion about how much money do you need to have a modest but happy and secure life. It was certainly not 60 million. What can you do with that amount? Similarly Harry and Meghan the discredited ex Royals are apparently needing financial security as they only have 34 million!! Thread drift from EasyJet. I used to work for them, it was not a happy company with the toxicity dripping from the top. Pilots were considered over paid prima donnas regardless of training, responsibility etc. This suited the agenda of the fabled orange culture whereby we could be trashed at the earliest opportunity.

I suppose if Sir Stelios feels strongly about cancelling the Airbus order, he could do what Ron Dennis did at McLaren a few years ago and mount a boardroom coup to install himself as easyJet CEO or another position on the board that will give him the authority to get his own way.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-pandemic.html

At least SRB is putting money into his businesses. I can't help but think whether Sir Stelios might have been better keeping quiet after sending that letter until after his self-imposed deadline has passed, though I'm not sure about the backlash given he's kept a relatively low profile since the early days of easyJet and when he occasionally made appearances on the ITV documentary 'Airline'. You don't see him at the launch of new easyJet routes or announcements of big aircraft orders like SRB still does at VS.

From a reasonably regular customer’s point of view I have always found the staff in the cabin both professional and friendly. Happy may be too strong but definitely motivated to do a decent job.

I am not doubting what you say for a moment but usually a toxic culture in the claustrophobic environment of a LCC cabin could not be missed by anyone.

Stelios as a major shareholder has a very different set of interests compared to any of the directors or employees, suppliers, or customers. He saw what happened to RBS in autumn 2008 - namely the Govt took a large equity stake in RBS but the existing shareholders incurred significant pain as part of this. The UK Chancellor has made clear that a Govt bailout of airlines should be as a last resort - so will demand at least a pound of flesh for the Govt in return for cash - it's the shareholders who will lose out. Stelios has presumably the bulk of his wealth invested in Easyjet and has no desire to lose (e.g.) half of this as part of a Govt bailout. He will therefore want to find any possible way to wriggle out of any contract with Airbus, avoid Easyjet needing a bailout and thus he gets to keep the bulk of his wealth. Of course once this is done, he may then choose to sell some of his shareholding in Easyjet
I very much doubt he cares what the Daily Mail writes