Mainstream media was awash over the weekend with reports that QANTAS CEO Alan Joyce has agreed to take a pay cut for the 2019/20 financial year, reflecting the tough trading conditions for the airline during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This still means that Alan Joyce’s pay for the financial year was $1.7 million, compared to a whacking $9.9 million in 2018/19, except for share allocations, which were massive taking his normal package to around $24 million,…yes $24 million!
Now I don’t know about you, $24m is beyond my comprehension, but $1.7 million even is still a pretty hefty salary and while I appreciate he runs the airline, by QANTAS making all this known, is he or them trying to make us feel sorry for him that his salary has dropped so much?
Let’s not forget, this has been a time when he has slashed jobs and more, with QANTAS a mere shadow of what it was when it was our national carrier and it seems strange to me and I know many others including many former and current employees, that he and his senior team get paid so much for what many it appears consider to have been trashing the airline!
I do wonder what QANTAS employees think, of Mr Joyce’s, what many believe are vastly inflated salary and package?
I also have to say along with many other CEOs in Australia, the question really is whether anyone is really worth these levels of remuneration?
An interesting comparison is the young 20 year old that won over $20 million dollars last week on Lotto and the manner in which that will change her and her family’s lives for ever. Compare that to in a normal year alone Alan Joyce’s remuneration would be much more that, yes in one year, and for example in five years he will earn more than $120 million. Beyond comprehension really!
To be fair to Mr Joyce, he opted not to receive 343,500 shares from his long-term incentive from 2012, but he has reserved the right defer a decision until at least August 2021, so let’s wait and see.
In the meantime, Mr Joyce and QANTAS chairman Richard Goyder did agree to forgo pay from April but they moved to 65% per cent of their base salary or fees from August 1 and the rest of the Qantas board and management have received 85% of their pay since July, but this is a company that has a $1.9 billion annual loss, has stood down 20,000 staff and made 8,000 redundancies. At the same time Qantas received collected $267 million in payments through JobKeeper for staff who were stood down from work, plus the company received $15 million from the wage subsidy and other government support packages.
I don’t know about you but there seems to massive chasm and disconnect between the guy at the top and many thousands in QANTAS struggling at the bottom or that have even been thrown on the unemployed scrap heap.
Tell us what you think, by clicking on Comments below.
Oh, by the way if you want to hear all about “What Might The Future Of Aviation Look Like” join our FREE reality focussed “No Sales Pitches”, “No Spin”, “Just Facts” …And “No Airlines”, Aviation Webinar – “What Might The Future Of Aviation Look Like”…Not To Be Missed…on Thursday 24 September @ 1.00pm AEST on Zoom by clicking below:-
A report by John Alwyn-Jones
.jpg){kind=tracking}