AIRLINE CHIEF WITH A FIERY TEMPER

A FORMER RAF pilot and five-time British aerobatics champion, Philip Meeson is the founder and executive chairman of Jet2.

Worth an estimated £296 million, he ranked 399th on the 2017 Sunday Times rich list — three spots ahead of Sir Elton John.

But he is no stranger to controversy. In 2006, Mr Meeson raised eyebrows when he called striking air traffic controllers in France ‘lazy frogs’.

Then in 2009 police were called to Manchester airport after receiving reports that the Jet2 boss was being abusive to staff and berating them about long queues that had built up.

The 70-year-old was raised in Northampton and educated at Wellingborough School and Northampton Technical College, before joining the Royal Air Force aged 17. Afterwards, he started a business with a friend selling secondhand cars, and earned enough to invest in a BMW dealership.

Mr Meeson has been in the aviation business since 1983 when he bought the Channel Express Group, which distributed Channel Islands-grown flowers to wholesale markets in the UK.

He developed the firm into a leisure travel provider and logistics operator, and floated it on the London Stock Exchange under a new name, Dart Group, in 1991 — where he still has a 38 pc stake.

Mr Meeson, who has a daughter, Jemma, from his first marriage, launched the Leeds-based airline Jet2 in 2002 and his Jet2 holidays firm five years later.