International Airlines Group boss Willie Walsh received a £5 million package of salary and bonuses last year after the group returned to profit.
The former head of British Airways took a performance-related bonus for 2013, according to the airline’s annual report, having passed one up the previous year as the group formed by the merger of British Airways and Iberia made a loss.
In 2013 Walsh received a £1.3m bonus with long-term share awards worth £2.6m vesting, on top of £825,000 in salary and around £250,000 in pension and benefits.
Keith Williams, the chief executive of British Airways, was paid £3m. Iberia’s boss, Luis Gallego Martín, took a 15% voluntary cut.
Last month IAG struck what it described as ‘landmark’ deal with the unions which appears to have lifted the threat of strikes by Iberia pilots. The deal allowed Iberia to make the vast structural changes necessary to return the airline to growth.
In the report, Walsh said: “I look back on last year with a sense of real pride and achievement for what people within IAG have done to put the business on a more secure footing.”
He said he was targeting operating profits of €1.8bn by 2015, and claimed: “We continue to prove the critical logic of merging British Airways and Iberia through the cost and revenue synergies we are achieving.”
Last week IAG said it returned to profit after reducing losses at Iberia. IAG competed the takeover of BMI in 2012 and also bought the profitable Spanish budget carrier Vueling, which helped improve IAG’s trading.
Pre-tax profit reported by IAG stood at €227 million excluding ‘exceptional items’, a significant improvement in the €774 million loss the previous year.