EasyJet’s new Chairman

Stephen Hester is to be the new Chairman of easyJet, arguably Britain’s largest airline.

The former boss of insurance group RSA Group, who was parachuted in to save Royal Bank of Scotland in 2008, succeeds John Barton on 1 December, and at this time joins the Board as a Non-executive Director.

Amongst the many issues he will have to deal with is the airline’s relationship concerning its founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou who, together with his family, hold 23% of the airline, now much reduced from the one time near 40%.  Stelios has been remarkably quiet over the last 12 months, clearly, as with everyone else, not quite sure what the future holds. His relationship with the board has been fraught in the past.

The airline carried only 2.98m customers in the most recent quarter, down 83% on pre-pandemic times when it was targeting 100m passengers for 2021.  

EasyJet reported in July that it was burning through cash at £34m per week, but said that its indebtedness had remained steady at £2bn.

www.easyjet.com

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