Easyjet: Golden goodbye for departing CEO Johan Lundgren
The departing chief executive of Easyjet has been handed a golden goodbye to the tune of almost £3m ahead of stepping down next month.
Johan Lundgren has pocketed £2.88m ahead of handing over to Kenton Jarvis in the New Year.
The pay packet is up from the £2.19m Lundgren received in the prior year.
The figures, revealed in Easyjet’s latest annual report, includes £803,000 in basic salary, a rise from £770,000. Lundgren’s bonus remained flat at £1.3m.
When Jarvis takes over, his basic salary has been set at £800,000.
Lundgren has served as Easyjet’s CEO for seven years and will remain with the airline until his notice period expires in May 2025.
The annual report comes after it was revealed that Easyjet plans to more than double its full-year dividend after its profit jumped nearly a third during its latest 12 months.
The carrier reported a 34 per cent rise in pre-tax profit to £610m in the 12 months to October 2024.
Operating profit also rose by 25 per cent to £597m, although this was slightly below analyst expectations.
Group revenue increased by 14 per cent to £9.3bn, as Easyjet flew nearly seven million more passengers than the prior year.
Subject to approval, investors can now expect an ordinary dividend of 12.1p per share, up from 4.5p in 2023 and amounting to £92m.
Easyjet, which has its base at Luton Airport, has enjoyed more resilience to the troubles thanks to its holiday arm, Easyjet Holidays.
Its subsidiary recorded a 56 per cent rise in pre-tax profit to £190m in the 12 months and has plans to grow its customer base by around 25 per cent in 2025.
‘Another successful year’ for Easyjet
Writing in the annual report, remuneration committee chair Moni Mannings said: “It has been another successful year for Easyjet, delivering continued progress towards our medium-term targets with performance surpassing most of our competitors.
“Revenue has been strong, increasing by 14 per cent and we have seen continued delivery in the growth of Easyjet holidays.
“This is despite a sometimes challenging operational environment and the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.”
She added: “Whilst as a business we have delivered an improved on-time performance overall, we did experience some external operational challenges due to the industry environment we are operating in and this led to some flight cancellations.
“The committee was conscious of the knock-on impact that this has on our customers’ experience.
“The committee was careful to consider this when determining the annual bonus outcomes, noting that our overall customer experience scores were also above our stretch target for the year.”