Qantas chief Alan Joyce pockets $25 million in a shares-laden package

ALAN Joyce, chief executive of Qantas, has flown way above all other Australian CEOs — pocketing a pay cheque nearly 300 times that of the average Australian.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce took home a pay cheque of at least $25 million last year.

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QANTAS boss Alan Joyce has flown way above all other Australian CEOs — pocketing at least $25 million last year.

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That’s about double the $13 million he made in the 2015-16 year and equates to something like 300 times the average pay cheque across Australia. It is also more than 10 times the $2.3 million Mr Joyce pocketed when the airline hit rock bottom in the 2011-12 year — the year in which he made his shock decision to ground the entire fleet and Qantas plunged to a $244 million loss.

Since then, it’s just been up and up and then up again — for the airline, for its profit, for its share price, and for Mr Joyce’s pay cheque. The exact figure he got in the 2016-17 year will be disclosed in Qantas’s annual report this week.

The big element will be shares he was awarded in 2014 when the airline was just starting on its recovery path.

Qantas boss Alan Joyce took home a pay cheque of at least $25 million last year. Picture: John Feder

Back then he was awarded 3.25 million shares which would only “vest” — he would only get them — if the airline performed.

It certainly has, in both profit and in share-price terms.

In 2013-14 it recorded a total loss of nearly $3 billion. In the latest year its profit hit $1.4 billion. In 2014 its share price was around $1.40, it’s now at $5.70.

Back in 2014 the 3.25 million shares Mr Joyce was conditionally given were worth around $4.5 million. Now when he actually gets them, he gets $18.6 million.

This was the biggest part of his record pay cheque. His ­actual cash pay was only a little over $2 million.

Other bonuses will take it to at least $25 million and indeed it could be higher.

Commonwealth Bank chief executive Ian Narev had his pay cheque slashed to $5.5 million.

That’s going to be not far short of the total pay cheques of the four big bank chief executives combined — usually the biggest CEO earners in Australia.

To date, Australia has only seen what the luckless Commonwealth Bank CEO Ian Narev got. His pay cheque was slashed to just $5.5 million.

He leaves the bank this year after its disastrous money-laundering scandal, and some CBA shareholders might think even that figure is too high, given the fall in the CBA share price since the scandal exploded into public view.

Qantas shareholders are unlikely to feel the same way about Mr Joyce’s big payday.

Mr Joyce may now be getting shares worth $18.6 million that were only worth about $4.5 million when granted to him. But over the same period, the value of all Qantas shares has soared from around $2.5 billion to more than $10 billion.

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