Aer Lingus chief paid €1.2m last year

AER LINGUS chief executive Christoph Mueller’s remuneration rose by 9.9 per cent to €1.244 million in 2011, according to the airline’s annual report.

Mr Mueller received a basic salary of €475,000 last year, the same as in 2010. He also earned an annual performance-related bonus of €611,000, a pension contribution of €119,000 and other benefits of €39,000. In 2010, Mr Mueller was paid €1.132 million.

Chief financial officer Andrew McFarlane received a total remuneration of €1.055 million last year. This compared with a payment of €209,000 in 2010. However, this payment only relates to Mr McFarlane’s time as an executive director following his appointment as such on October 3rd, 2010.

Mr McFarlane received a basic salary of €330,000 last year. Aer Lingus said Mr McFarlane had “voluntarily agreed” to reduce his salary by 23 per cent to this level.

Mr McFarlane also received an annual performance-related payment of €366,000, a pension contribution of €107,000 and a “deferred transformational performance scheme bonus” of €204,000. The transformational bonus was earned “specifically for delivering Greenfield savings” in 2011, the report states. This payment has been deferred until the last quarter of 2012. Greenfield is the cost reduction programme aimed at reducing Aer Lingus’s overheads by €97 million a year. It has yet to be fully implemented.

The report also shows that Mr McFarlane was granted conditional awards of 407,970 shares under a long-term incentive plan (LTIP) relating to performance between January 1st, 2010, and December 31st this year.

In April 2011, he was granted conditional awards of 500,000 shares under the LTIP relating to his performance from January last year to the end of 2012.

The annual report shows that chairman Colm Barrington was paid €126,000 last year, the same level as in 2010.

In total, the company paid its non-executive directors €472,000 in 2011 compared with €520,000 in the previous year.

The bonus paid to Mr Mueller represented 128.5 per cent of his salary while Mr McFarlane’s was 110.9 per cent. Mr Mueller has agreed to voluntarily permanently freeze his salary at €475,000.

The report states that in 2012, the annual performance-related bonuses would be subject to a cap of 150 per cent of basic salary for Mr Mueller (the same level as last year); 100 per cent for “certain senior executives”, 75 per cent of salary for “certain other senior executives” and 40 per cent and 30 per cent respectively for the other two categories of senior management.

The airline’s 3,700 staff will share €6.25 million from an employee gain-sharing incentive scheme relating to the Greenfield cost reduction program.

Source:  http://www.irishtimes.com