Qantas flies low as exec pay comes down from the clouds

In the days after releasing a tear-jerking pro-vax ad that caught the nation’s attention, Qantas has revealed why some of its own executives have been looking rather teary of late. The airline’s financial results on Thursday revealed a $1.7b loss in market conditions that CE Alan Joyce described as “diabolical”. Later in the day, company representatives revealed that it wasn’t just shareholders taking a hit. While the airline will make us wait until September for the full executive pay breakdown, company reps revealed that pay for senior executives over the past financial year was down 70% on pre-pandemic levels and annual bonuses had been cancelled again. The board took reduced fees while some members of the executive team accepted payment in Qantas shares rather than cash. It’s a similar story to last year when Joyce took home $1.7m as a total package, compared with $9.9m the previous year and $24m in the 2016-2017 financial year when he was the country’s highest-paid executive. Last year, the bulk of Qantas’ executive team still collected half of their long-term equity bonuses - given to them in shares worth a total of $1.2m. At the time, the company reasoned that, while the share price was down 44% in the year and 32% down over three years, it had still performed better than a group of 18 comparable listed airlines. But Joyce drew the line at taking the incentive, putting off the decision on whether to accept the shares worth $1.3m for another year. But now, that year is almost up and D-Day is approaching for Joyce to announce his decision to collect or not. <br/>