Ryanair restores pay and bonus of Michael O’Leary to pre-Covid level of €975k

Michael O’Leary also has other share-based incentives which the company valued at almost €1.8m last year. 

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has taken a hit on his 3.9% stake in the airline.

Ryanair has restored the pay of its group chief executive Michael O’Leary to pre-pandemic levels, with his combined pay and bonuses increasing to €975,000, according to its annual report.

The Ryanair boss had taken a hit to his combined pay and took home €250,000 during the pandemic. Mr O’Leary’s pay has now rebounded in the 12 months to the end of March of this year after the airline restored a bonus worth €475,000.  

At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, Mr O’Leary had volunteered a 50% reduction in his base pay. The new annual report showed that Mr O’Leary was paid a basic salary of €500,000, which helped bring his total pay to €958,000. 

However, Mr O’Leary has other share-based incentives which the company valued at almost €1.8m last year. 

Relating to the cash bonus, the annual report shows that up to half of the bonus was linked to Ryanair reaching a passenger traffic target of 100 million people. With Ryanair flying just over 97 million passengers, Mr O’Leary in fact received a little short of what was available.  

The cash bonus payments were also linked to levels of  customer service and environmental targets laid down by the airline’s remuneration committee. Ryanair had posted revenues of €4.8bn in the year and cut its pre-tax loss to €430m. 

However, Mr O’Leary has taken a hit on his 3.9% stake in the airline. The shares on Tuesday were trading at €12.63, down from €16.79 a year ago. 

Under Mr O’Leary’s current incentive plan, he could get just under €100m if Ryanair profits exceed €2bn in any one year, or if the Ryanair share price tops €21 for a 28-day period, before April 2024. The report confirms that “due to the impact of Covid and more recently the invasion of Ukraine, to date, none of the ambitious vesting targets have been achieved”. 

Mr O’Leary in the annual report said Ryanair had increased significantly its market share in Ireland. Before the onset of Covid, Ryanair’s largest market was in Britain. However, Italy last year was the airline’s largest market accounting for revenues of €1.1bn, followed by Spain's €873m in revenues. The airline’s British revenues totalled €564m.

The report confirms Ryanair received €82m last year in various European Covid-19 payroll schemes, while staff numbers rose to 19,116.