EasyJet is not out of the Stelios storm

The argument rages between the easyJet board and the airline's founder, but on the long-term incentive plan he has something interesting to say"The gravy train of £180m free shares issued over the last decade must come to an end," says Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of easyJet. Wow, that's a striking statistic - £180m equates to about 10% of the company's market valuation.But is it the whole story? EasyJet thinks not - and one can understand why. It says that 30.7m out of 41m shares issued to employees since 2000 relate to pre-flotation schemes put in place by Haji-Ioannou himself. Indeed, he seems to have been generous in spreading the fruits of easyJet's success. It was not only executives in the early years who benefited - pilots and cabin crew did too. Good for Haji-Ioannou, he was ahead of his time in promoting staff share ownership - but, come on, he shouldn't include those shares in an allegation that the board (on which he sat for most of the decade) has been too loose wit