Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who is a major shareholder of Fastjet, has called a general meeting to immediately dismiss Fastjet’s chief executive, Ed Winter, and remove another director, Krista Bates, from the main board.
Winter has already announced he would step down as chief executive, pending a successor being found, but Haji-Ioannou is calling for him to go sooner citing cost concerns.
In a letter to Fastjet’s chairman, he said: “The company has a ridiculously high cost base ... Winter has burnt some £80m in the last three years. We believe the company will run out of cash sometime in 2016. We now have about six months left to steady this ship. Time is of the essence.”
Haji-Ioannou is highly critical of the Fastjet head office being located at London Gatwick rather than in Tanzania where the main operations are based. He also said that Fastjet was making unrealistic revenue forecasts for a fleet of six aircraft. Fastjet plans to release a statement in response shortly.