Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of easyJet, insisted last night that he did not want to oust Sir Colin Chandler as chairman, despite his concern about the struggling budget airline’s strategy.

The entrepreneur, who set up the airline in 1995, wants to appoint two nonexecutive directors as allies, but said that it was not legally clear whether he would be able to bring both on board as he tries to assert his authority in the company.

Sir Stelios said that he had “no desire to be the chairman of any PLC”, adding: “It is not what I enjoy doing in life . . . I have a good working relationship with Sir Colin Chandler. I have nothing but admiration and respect for him.”

His statement came in an e-mail to The Times last night to clarify his position, the latest twist in a boardroom dispute over strategy that burst into the open on Friday. He wants the airline to be run more conservatively.

Under an eight-year legal agreement adopted when he stood down

from day-to-day running of easyJet, Sir Stelios – who controls 26.9 per cent of its shares – retains the right to appoint two extra directors loyal to him and also to become chairman. However, it is unclear whether Sir Stelios can appoint himself and two other directors to the board if he does not become chairman.

Sir Stelios said: “The measure of becoming chairman myself is extreme and I am pretty sure it will not be necessary in this case. The debate is if I am entitled to two or three nonexecutives at the board, including myself.”

Sir Stelios – who remains easyJet’s biggest shareholder but is dissatisfied with the strategy of Andrew Harrison, its chief executive – said that his main aim in his dispute with its board was to seek a change in dividend policy.

Speaking before the publication tomorrow of easyJet’s full-year results, which are expected to reveal a steep fall in profits, Sir Stelios attacked its longstanding policy of never paying a dividend. “All properly run companies pay dividends,” he said. “It just makes good business sense for every mature company to plan to pay a dividend to its loyal shareholders one day.”

Sir Stelios said that he was tabling a board resolution for easyJet to plan to do so in 2011 “if the markets and the liquidity of the company allow”.

At the dispute’s core is a difference between Sir Stelios, who believes that easyJet should restrict its growth, and Mr Harrison, who wants it to press on with a brisk expansion plan, including ordering new aircraft. Despite the economic downturn, Mr Harrison wants easyJet, after a recent period of rapid growth of 15 per cent a year, to continue to grow in the “low single digits”. All directors, apart from Sir Stelios, have supported Mr Harrison’s plans.

Separately, Sir Stelios rejected what he called “unfounded allegations” that he was seeking the dividend changes because he was facing a cash crunch himself and was feeling the effects of the turmoil in global credit markets. “I am doing OK financially considering the crisis because I made sure I entered [it] with practically zero leverage as an entrepreneur,” he said.

EasyJet could not be reached for comment last night.

- The High Court has granted easyJet’s request for judicial review of the regulatory process that allowed a large fee increase at Gatwick by BAA, the airport group. The ruling is a defeat for the Civil Aviation Authority.

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