The 1,000 employees of Ryanair are to receive options over nearly four million shares worth £20 million.

This is the first time that an Irish public company has introduced a company-wide option scheme where employees hold the share options directly rather than through an ESOP share option scheme where the shares are held in trust.

The exact number of options that will be set aside will depend on the Ryanair market price on June 12th, the day the airline publishes its full-year results.

Ryanair shares are currently trading at 520p, and if this is the price on June 12th, the £20 million would translate into options over 3.8 million shares.

Ryanair's commercial director, Mr Michael Cawley, said the option scheme would be salary-related and would not involve a flat allocation of options irrespective of salary and seniority. No further details were available from the company yesterday.

The £20 million figure relates to options for the existing 1,000 employees and provision for options for future employees will have to be made separately.

The share option scheme is in addition to basic pay increases between 3.25 per cent and 5 per cent which, Ryanair chief executive, Mr Michael O'Leary, said was significantly ahead of Partnership 2000.

Mr O'Leary also said that this time last year all employees had shared in a £2 million flotation bonus and had qualified to purchase shares which now had a value of some £11 million.

"We are determined to continue to try to create substantial wealth for our outstanding people, by encouraging them to become long-term shareholders in Ryanair," he added.

He made no reference to the recent baggage handlers dispute at the company which brought Dublin airport to a standstill.