Stelios Haji-Ioannou People Quotations

I didn't want people to say: Stelios does everything on the cheap at work, and in private he lives in the lap of luxury. That's not me. I don't need those status symbols. I don't need a private jet either when I can go everywhere with Easy.

I'm sure there are managers who have had far greater financial success. But my companies such as easyJet have changed the lives of many people. We haven't just made flights affordable for a lot of people.

I have to manage and protect my brand. For the details I can always hire people who can knuckle down much better. For that I need people who are different to myself. People who compensate for my weaknesses.

My biggest mistake was when I started up easyEverything, a chain of Internet cafes. The idea that people would go to a shop to use a computer was revolutionary in 1999. It worked for a while, but cheap technology almost killed it. One silver lining of the problems I faced was that it gave me experience of turnarounds.

In America you can be Donald Trump, have a business go wrong, and file for Chapter 11. You can move on, and no one complains. When his casinos were in Chapter 11, he was still on TV telling people how to get rich. I had to persevere for years with easyInternet because I couldn't afford to hurt the brand.

I'm not a communist - I believe in the free market and that entrepreneurs should be allowed to take risks because it creates wealth and jobs, but I draw the line at people risking other people's money. That's deplorable.

There are still too many people out there who are claustrophobic. On easyCruise, we are going to open up as many cabins as we can.