A brand new budget airline might be set to mix up the low-cost flights market. However the arrival of this fledgling carrier is not likely to be without controversy, or possible lawful activity.
Early on this week, aviation entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou announced plans for Fastjet – a start-up rival for established operators such as Ryanair.
But in a curious turn of events, the launch of the service is likely to bring the Athens-born businessman into conflict with the budget airline that he famously founded – easyJet.
Relations between easyJet and Sir Stelios have been decidedly uneasy in the last 18 months.
Despite the fact that the tycoon and their family still own 38 per cent of the airline that he began from the begining in 1995 (with a £5million loan from his shipping-magnate father), discussions involving the two parties have already been icy since Haji-Ioannou resigned from the actual carrier’s board in May 2010 in a row over strategy.
