Qantas boss turns down wage bonus
QANTAS Group chief executive Alan Joyce has seen his pay fall from almost $10m last year to $1.7m in the 2020 financial year after he declined $1.4m worth of bonus shares.
The airline released its annual report to the ASX yesterday including details of executive remuneration which showed Mr Joyce’s salary dropped by 83 per cent following three months of no pay due to the COVID crisis.
A long-term incentive bonus based on the Qantas share price would have netted the chief executive 343,500 shares worth about $4 each, but Mr Joyce offered not to take them.
Other executives saw their salaries fall 69 per cent overall, after also taking no pay for three months.
Jetstar chief executive Gareth Evans was the second highest paid after Mr Joyce, collecting $1.2m, followed by former Qantas International chief Tino La Spina, who earned $1.6m and has now left the airline.
Overall executive salaries totalled just under $7m, down from $22.4m the previous year. All executives have now resumed their salaries at 85 per cent of their base pay, while Mr Joyce was being paid 65 per cent of his $2.15m base salary.
Qantas chairman Richard Goyder said management and the board had shown important leadership by taking no salary for several months and then a reduced salary for months after that.
“This is obviously not the same hardship as those stood down or facing redundancy, but it comes at a time when demands on management are greater than ever,” Mr Goyder
said. “When travel restrictions first hit, Alan and the management team acted quickly to put most of the business in hibernation and develop a recovery plan.
“Liquidity has been strengthened and difficult decisions are being made as part of carving out $15bn in costs over the next three years. Sadly this has a very real impact on thousands of people.”
Qantas and Jetstar are in the process of axing 6000 jobs from their 29,000-strong workforce, and another 2420 ground handling jobs appear set to be outsourced to save money. The annual report showed the group was performing well against key targets before the COVID-19 crisis began to impact the aviation industry in March.
Government travel restrictions and border closures resulted in an 82 per cent drop in revenue between April and the end of June, and a 91 per cent fall in underlying profit before tax for the 2020 financial year. Qantas’s statutory before tax loss was $2.7bn, the second highest on record, and Mr Joyce warned another significant loss was expected in 2021.