Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has finished his year on a high note, being granted nearly $600,000 of the airline's shares yesterday.
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Two months after Mr Joyce suddenly grounded the airline, stranding 70,000 people worldwide for days, the board awarded him 375,014 shares that were bought for him by the company's share plan trustee at $1.58 each.
The bonus shares, held in a trust fund for employee shares, were due as a result of Mr Joyce meeting performance targets.
''Individual and Qantas Group performance measures were achieved by Mr Joyce and at the discretion of the Qantas board, his 2010-11 STIP [short-term incentive plan] vested,'' the company said in a note to the stock exchange explaining the transaction.
The bonus shares come on top of the 721,255 Qantas shares he already holds directly, and the 2.1million shares held in trust.
Mr Joyce's decision to ground Qantas following industrial hostilities cost the company $70million, but it broke the back of the threat of continuing industrial disputation, which had cost the airline $68million in strikes and rolling bans, and $27million in forward bookings.
Yesterday, the pilots' union expressed dismay at the share bonus.
''We don't think it's reasonable because the man shut the airline down for two days and did untold damage to the airline's reputation... and then they give him $600,000 of shares?'' Australian and International Pilots Association vice-president Richard Woodward said.
''[It] doesn't hold up too well, I'm afraid,'' he said.
Meanwhile, about 100 Qantas passengers injured during a wild ride on flight QF72 in 2008 off the coast of Western Australia have settled compensation claims.
An informed aviation source has told Fairfax the settlement involved payments up to $100,000 a person, significantly less than the sum widely reported yesterday as up to $400,000 per person.
The settlement was covered by insurers for Airbus and avionics company Northrop Grumman, predominantly, while Qantas' insurers covered a minor amount, the source said.
In the US, aviation lawyer Floyd Wisner is representing a small number of the injured passengers who have not settled their claims.
Australian air investigators found the flight computer malfunctioned, sending the aircraft into two nosedives, injuring passengers not wearing seatbelts when they hit the ceiling of the aircraft.
The glitches had now been rectified, investigators said.