EasyJet is braced for another bruising annual meeting next week after Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the airline’s founder, said he would vote against plans to award the chief executive a £5 million pay package.
Caroline McCall, who took the helm at the airline two years ago, has been credited with improving passenger numbers, but Sir Stelios, who holds 36 per cent of EasyJet’s shares, said she was “overpaid”. Ms McCall, a former executive at the Guardian Media Group, has been awarded shares worth £2.95 million as part of a long-term incentive plan that would see her total remuneration rise to £5 million. Chris Kennedy, the chief financial officer, is expected to receive a total package of £3 million.
“It is an unjustifiable salary advance of about 10 times on what they were earning at their previous employers only two years ago,” Sir Stelios said in a letter to shareholders.
“EasyJet has now adopted the whole rotten Bob Diamond culture on pay.”
He blamed Sir Mike Rake, the non-executive chairman, for the pay increases and said he would vote against his re-election at the annual meeting on February 21st.
