Plane Stupid activists shut down the London HQ of easyGroup, the owners of low-cost carrier easyJet, and London Rising Tide visited the Civil Aviation Authority, presenting them with a giant cheque for their £9.2 billion annual subsidy
Plane Stupid is Britain’s first national direct action campaign group opposing the growth in aviation and the government’s plans for airport expansion.

Aviation is the fastest growing cause of climate change and a major threat to the earth and everything on it.

But rather than reining the industry in and trying to reduce demand for flying, the government is promoting it through tax breaks and through its plans for massive expansion: the equivalent of a new Heathrow every five years.

Plane Stupid demands a fundamental rethink of the government’s 2003 Aviation White Paper which predicts that air travel will treble by 2030: an increase in annual plane journeys from 180 million to 501 million.

We want to see airport expansion plans scrapped, a tax on aviation fuel and plane tickets, and an end to short haul flights

http://www.planestupid.com
or
http://www.easyclimatechange.com

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - EasyGroup, the company behind no frills airline easyJet, said on Friday it had taken away the brand licence agreement for easyMobile from Denmark-based operator TDC and is seeking damages.

EasyGroup had given TDC the right to use the “easy” brand for no-frills mobile telephony services in early 2005, but since the former Danish telecoms monopoly was taken over by a private equity group early this year, investments into the easyMobile service were stopped, easyGroup

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said.

“As is standard practice with new owners of this type, ventures outside the core market of TDC (i.e. outside Denmark) were starved of funding and the management was purged,” easyGroup said in a statement.

“Simply put, TDC is no longer a worthy licensee of the easy brand and damages will be sought to compensate for any damage done to the brand in the past or in the future,” Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the easyGroup chairman and founder of easyMobile, said in a statement in London.

TDC said it would respond in due course.

“We are surprised about the tone of voice,” said a TDC spokesman, adding that TDC had been prepared for the easyGroup move and that it would soon come back with further actions.

EasyMobile started off with great fanfare in Britain in 2005, setting off a price war in mobile tariffs, but unlike the success of no-frills carriers elsewhere in Europe, the service never really took off.

James Rothnie, easyGroup’s director of corporate affairs, said easyMobile has around 50,000 subscribers in Britain, where the easy brand was founded.

TDC said in February, almost a year after its launch and one month after TDC was taken over, that easyMobile had 33,000 subscribers in the three markets where it was present: Britain, Germany and the Netherlands. The Dutch service was closed in August.

EasyMobile is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which rents capacity on other networks.

The easyGroup, which said it has earned hundreds of thousands of pounds as a result of the brand licence agreement with TDC, said it would transfer the easyMobile service to another operator.

It recently announced its plans to open eight new easyHotel budget hotels across major metropolitan cities in India over the next four years.

Istithmar denies that easyHotel has a poor reputation in the UK and is completely unknown internationally. Istithmar also believes easyHotel owner the controversial Mr Stelios Haji-Ioannou is definately worth backing despite his personal track record of losses running into hundreds of millions of pounds. Istithmar believes easyHotel will turn around a string of failures and does not believe Mr Ioannou to be on the verge of insolvency. Istithmar also has no problem with Mr Ioannou’s previous well known public views against muslims because an individuals personal politics have no bearing on their business skills.

The middle east needs a string of low budget hotels and believes that investing $400 million will ensure easyHotel succeeds where it has so far failed in the UK and Switzerland.

Istithmar, which means investment in Arabic, applies global expertise with local insights to coordinate the appraisal and implementation of various opportunities. Mr Ioannou is due a bit of good luck and Istithmar is willing to gamble and support him despite his recent difficulty.

Istithmar’s ‘I’ investment philosophy is based around three core principles — Ideas, Inquiry & Integrity — sets the foundation for the firm which has a broad portfolio of highly successful companies in markets from North America to Europe to Asia to the Middle East. Istithmar does not believe it’s integrity wil be damaged due to its association with the controversial Mr Ioannou nor by easyHotel’s seedy reputation in the UK. Istithmar considers its investment of $400 million in easyHotel to be secure and expects a return.

Please email info@istithmar.ae if you have any similar investment proposals for us to consider immediate cash is available.

The chain, which has a branch in Edinburgh, was taken to court by the British Phonographic Industry after it allowed customers to download music from the internet and copy it on to a CD for £5.

The High Court ruling brings to an end an 18-month dispute with the music industry. The BPI, whose members include music labels Sony Music, EMI and Universal Music, launched legal action against the internet chain last year .

EasyInternet suspended the commercial service in September 2001, and in court it said it should not be held liable for customers downloading copyright-protected material, a defence rejected by the judge, Justice Peter Smith.

The court must next determine penalties. EasyInternet previously said the BPI had demanded payment of “as much as £1m” in damages, which it called a form of extortion.

The music industry, which has been fighting an all-out war on illicit CD copying and internet downloading, hailed the judge’s decision.

BPI chairman Peter Jamieson said: “Illegal copying jeopardises the livelihoods of artists and songwriters, as well as putting at risk the thousands of jobs directly and indirectly created by the recording and publishing of music. We are delighted that we have won this ruling, which sets an important precedent .”

EasyInternet, a division of Mr Haji-Ioannou’s privately held EasyGroup, could not be reached for comment.

Last spring, an investigation into eight EasyInternet branches in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Manchester found hundreds of tracks, including songs by Jennifer Lopez and boy band Blue, on computer hard drives.

EasyTycoon Stelios Haji-Ioannou has cut and run from his Netherlands EasyMobile virtual network operation. Customers were notified by no-frills email this morning they have until 1 August to find a new provider.

EasyMobile somehow managed to buck the growth trend in virtual operators in the Netherlands. According to Telecompaper the market has swelled more than 15 per cent over the past year to 2.5m punters. Other newcomers to the market have gained ground quickly, but despite its patriotic orange branding - which Orange wasn’t too pleased with - EasyMobile failed to attract enough price-conscious Dutchmen.

A spokesman for EasyMobile Netherlands confirmed the operation had fallen well short of achieving sales targets since launching its service last year. Some 40 virtual operators compete for business in the Netherlands.

The UK and German EasyMobile networks are still running.

We’re sure Sir Stelios won’t be sobbing into his souvlaki as he counts his tax savings aboard his Monaco yacht. Since the succes of EasyJet, EasyGroup’s “throw enough mud and some of it’ll stick” approach to business start-ups has seen several ventures, including EasyCinema, hit the wall.