EasyJet chief takes a £34,000 pay cut
. . . after Mail exposed how less experienced man would earn more than female predecessor
EASYJET’S chief executive has taken a £34,000 pay cut to match the salary of his female predecessor Dame Carolyn McCall.
The budget airline revealed that Johan Lundgren’s basic salary is being cut from £740,000 to £706,000.
The Mail revealed in November how Lundgren, whose previous job was deputy chief executive at travel firm Tui, would earn more than McCall, one of Britain’s most sought after bosses who had led EasyJet for seven years and was credited with making it one of the UK’s most successful firms.
McCall, who is married with three children, left the airline last month to take the reins at ITV.
But campaigners for equal pay had been outraged at the decision to pay her replacement more, pointing out that despite having a wealth of travel industry experience, Lundgren had never held the top job at a major firm.
But an airline industry source said one of the reasons why he was initially paid more than McCall is that he enjoyed a basic salary of £770,000 at Tui – so had to take a pay cut.
Last night, however, EasyJet stressed the decision to take a fur- ther cut to match McCall was taken voluntarily by Lundgren.
The 51-year-old Swede, who is married with two children, received identical perks to McCall’s including annual bonuses and long-share awards worth up to £3.2m. At the same time the FTSE100 firm also revealed its average male employee earns 51.7pc more than its average female employee.
EasyJet said the yawning gender pay gap – the worst of any big company yet to report – is because 94pc of its highly paid pilots are male, and is not driven by ‘unequal pay for women’ at the airline.
It said it is making good progress towards its target of 20pc of new pilots being female by 2020. Lundgren said: ‘At EasyJet we are absolutely committed to giving equal pay and equal opportunity for women and men.
‘I want that to apply to everybody at EasyJet and to show my personal commitment I have asked the board to reduce my pay to match that of Carolyn’s when she was at EasyJet,’ he said.
The move will pile the pressure on male executives at other firms to follow suit.
Although some top paid BBC presenters including John Humphrys have agreed to have their salary cut to address criticism over the gender pay divide, Lundgren is the first boss of a FTSE100 company to do so. All UK employers with more than 250 employees have to disclose their gender pay gap by April this year.
A Women’s Equality Party spokesman welcomed Lundgren’s decision to take a pay cut but added that ‘this problem will not be solved by a few high-paid individuals opening their wallets – it requires action on both the pay gap and outright pay discrimination.’
Sam Smethers, chief executive of gender equality and women’s rights charity the Fawcett Society said: ‘This action shows that there is a real issue here, both of a gender pay gap but also possible unequal pay.
‘I suspect more employers will take similar action in the coming months,’ Smethers said.