Says He Will Vote Against Purchase Of 135 A320 Aircraft

The founder and major shareholder of Britain's EasyJet airline says a deal to purchase 135 Airbus A320 airplanes is "bad," and that he plans to vote against approving the purchase when it comes before the board later this month.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who founded the budget airline and remains its largest shareholder, said he still believes the deal will be approved, but that he is opposed to what he calls the "high cost" of the "secret deal with Airbus" that did not carry an official price.

The French news service AFP reports that Haji-Ioannou said in an open letter dated Monday that the deal was good for Airbus, but bad for the company. He said he is not against replacing the airline's older aircraft, but "I am against buying aircraft that are three times more expensive than the ones I bought with my own money in the early 2000s."

The agreement was announced last month as part of the Paris Air Show. EasyJet said it had negotiated a "substantial discount" from list prices from Airbus, but Haji-Ioannou said that "if the starting list price is a fiction which always goes up with time and doubles over the next decade, then the discount has just evaporated."

The deal reportedly also includes options for 100 A320neo airplanes.

Haji-Ioannou and his family own nearly 37 percent of EastJet, as well as having just launched the first pan-African budget carrier Fastjet.

FMI: www.easyjet.com