Geneva airport workers defrost the wings of a passenger plane of Easyjet on December 30, 2008 at the Geneva airport.FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP / Getty Images
EasyJet's largest shareholder and founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou has called for a shareholders' meeting to vote on the removal of Rigas Doganis as an independent non-executive director, part of a long-running dispute with the company.
Mr. Haji-Ioannou, who controls around 38 per cent of the low-cost carrier through his EasyGroup investment vehicle, highlighted Mr. Doganis' support this year for the airline to buy 35 planes from Airbus , a move he does not believe to have been in easyJet's interests.
He also criticized Mr. Doganis for failing to foresee easyJet would have to report a profit warning just two weeks after it placed the order with Airbus, which Mr. Haji-Ioannou claims hit the company's share price.
"He (Doganis) failed to foresee on January 4, 2011, the profit warning announced on January 20, 2011. That profit warning has destroyed about a quarter of the company's market capitalization, or some £600-million," Mr. Haji-Ioannou wrote in a letter to the easyJet board.
"Had the profit warning been announced before the aircraft order, we believe that the drop in the market cap would have necessitated a shareholder vote for the capital expenditure in circumstances where he would have known that the directors would have failed to obtain such approval."
EasyJet hit back at the criticism, saying it was a "further unnecessary and costly distraction which is damaging to the company's reputation and undermines investor confidence".
"The board believes this resolution is not about removing Rigas Doganis as a director ... but a clear attempt by a minority shareholder to inappropriately determine the composition of the board and to override normal corporate governance protocols," it said in a statement on Monday.
EasyJet said it would write to shareholders recommending they vote against the resolution.
The company also disputed Mr. Haji-Ioannou's description of its January trading update as a profit warning and said it had made repeated and unsuccessful efforts to meet with him in private in recent months to discuss the business.
Mr. Doganis, appointed to the easyJet board in 2005, is an aviation consultant and strategy adviser to airlines, airports, banks and governments around the world.
Mr. Haji-Ioannou, better known as Mr. Stelios, last month called for a shareholder vote on the removal of David Michels as a director and has previously demanded a vote over the Airbus deal.
He has been in dispute with the airline over its use of the "easy" brand and has spoken out about its punctuality, among other things.