Michael O’Leary’s pay tops €1.2m

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary’s pay last year topped €1.272 million after he received a 24% increase in bonus payments.

Documents just lodged by Ryanair with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the US confirms that along with Mr O’Leary’s basic salary of €768,000 in the 12 months to the end of March, the chief executive received a bonus totalling over half a million euro.

The figures show that Mr O’Leary received a bonus of €504,000 — a 24% increase on the fiscal 2011 bonus of €440,000.

Overall, he received a 23% increase in total remuneration last year following the €1.03m he received in 2011. The bonus last year is more than double the bonus payment of €241,000 Mr O’Leary received in fiscal 2010.

The figures show that Mr O’Leary’s basic pay increased by 29% from €595,000 to €768,000 last year.

Mr O’Leary received the increase in bonus payments in fiscal 2012 after he steered the airline to record a 25% increase in after tax profits of €503m after revenues rose by 19% to €4.3bn.

On Ryanair’s current market capitalisation of €5.81bn, Mr O’Leary’s shareholding of 3.5% of the airline’s shares is worth €203m.

The filings confirm that the aggregate amount of compensation paid by Ryanair to the eight sitting non-executive directors and nine executive officers during the 2012 fiscal year was €6m.

Former finance minister, Charlie McCreevy is a non-executive director. Each of the company’s non-executive directors last year received €32,000 plus expenses.

The filings state that company chairman David Bonderman waived his entitlement to receive this remuneration in fiscal 2012 as he did in 2011.

Numbers employed by Ryanair — currently bidding to take over Aer Lingus — fell last year from 8,560 to 8,388 with staff costs topping €309m.

The filings show that during fiscal 2012, 47% of an average flight attendant’s total earnings and 37% of a typical pilot’s compensation were based on productivity incentive payments.