We do not publish what people earn on the main as we see it to be wrong, but in this instance shareholders might want to have a think about the size of the package against those of lets say Willie Walsh and then ask – Are you sure? Jeffery Smisek tripled his compensation last year to $13.4 million on the back of a successful merger between United and Continental. More than half the compensation for the airline’s CEO came from stock awards.
In 2010, Smisek as CEO of Continental Airlines, was paid $4.4 million, and last year he received stock awards valued at $7.53 million when they were granted in February 2011, including $4.4 million in merger incentives.
Other top United executives also got merger incentives that could become very valuable. The awards for Chief Financial Officer Zane Rowe, Chief Operations Officer Peter McDonald and Chief Revenue Officer James Compton were valued at $1.65 million each.