Stelios accepts libel damages over accusation of lying by Ryanair

Stelios brought proceedings in London's High Court over the adverts which appeared in two national newspapers and on Ryanair's website in January and February.

The adverts concerned the flight on-time statistics of EasyJet, which had not been published on the airline's website for 37 weeks.

They featured a picture of Stelios distorted so that his nose was elongated in the style of Pinocchio and referred to him as "EasyJet's - Mr Late Again".

They called on the airline entrepreneur to "stop hiding the truth" about EasyJet's flight delays and resume publishing details of its on-time performance.

Stelios's solicitor, Chris Scott, told Mr Justice Eady that Ryanair and chief executive Michael O'Leary had made a complete offer to settle the claim and fully accepted that Stelios did not lie about the matter.

They had unreservedly apologised and agreed to pay him damages and his legal costs.

In a statement, Stelios said: "This was an unpleasant personal attack on me by a large public company, made worse by the way O'Leary responded to the legal complaints.

"I am pleased the law provides protection to individuals like me from unpleasant attacks on reputations from large companies like Ryanair."

His representatives said that the sum offered was 50,100, which Stelios had accepted and would donate to his philanthropic foundation.

It would be used for the Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs in the UK 2010, which is run in partnership with Leonard Cheshire, the disability charity.

O'Leary said: "We are happy to apologise to Stelios for including his photograph and referring to him personally in the advert about EasyJet's missing weekly punctuality stats. And since he was not responsible for EasyJet's decision to stop publishing these statistics, I think it is only fair and reasonable that we say 'sorry' and pay him damages and his legal costs, rather than waste court time on this issue."