easyJet's founder and largest shareholder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, has today filed the requisite papers with the company calling for an extraordinary general meeting at which the sole item of business will be a vote on the removal of Sir Michael Rake as director and Chairman.

Sir Stelios said:
"It is clear that, following Bob Diamond's resignation at Barclays, everyone can see Mike Rake's deep conflicts of interest and entrenched positions in the disgraced 'City establishment'. His lack of diligence at stopping or outing this scandal at one of Britain's major banks now calls into question his ability to hold down four major public company roles simultaneously. I think "Mr Conflict of Interest" has to let some of it go…now.

"Our company will need to take a number of important decisions over the next few months with regard to executive bonuses, capital expenditure with Airbus and total shareholder returns (including buy backs). It therefore follows we can't have a chairman, who is going to be tied-up in one of the largest corporate scandals in recent history.

"The current deputy chairman, Charles Gurassa, can take over in the interim and lead the search for a new Chairman with no conflicts of interest and who is not close to Airbus. It is our right as shareholders holding more than 10% of the shares to call for this meeting so other shareholders can express their views too.

"In the same way that Rake published the results of the last AGM both with and without my family's votes (as if we are second class citizens) - I expect conflicted shareholders like Standard Life, who manage the Airbus pension fund to have the decency to stand aside on this occasion."