People saves the planet – and a pie
HE MIGHT not look like a man who would take great steps to avoid a pie, but according to one environmental protester, this is exactly what Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the charismatic founder of easyJet, has been doing.
In recent months, Rebecca Lush, a road protester, has hurled pies into the faces of Jeremy Clarkson and Alistair Darling. At one point, Stelios was to have been next.
On hearing of her plans to disrupt his launch of a scholarship at the London School of Economics, the airline boss offered to appear in a head-to-head debate on aviation and the environment instead.
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“Has it happened?” says Lush. “Has it hell.” Back to pies at dawn, then? “Absolutely.”
Over to easyJet and, a while later, to Stelios himself. “I have just spoken to Rebecca,” he tells us, “and we have agreed on March 28. You know, I have never been shy of debating the environmental issue. Within airlines, I do believe that easyJet is much more environmentally friendly than many others.”
Sentiments shared earlier in the day by the company’s director of communications, Toby Nicol. “If she wants to target any f***ing airlines,” he fumed, “she should be having a go at Michael O’Leary.”
O’Leary is the Ryanair boss.