Three top executives at Aer Lingus - including its chief executive and chief financial officer - earned the bulk of almost €2.8m in core director remuneration paid by the airline last year.
CEO Lynne Embleton, CFO Elizabeth Haun and chief corporate affairs officer Donal Moriarty split the vast proportion of the pay, with two non-executive directors - including former CEO Stephen Kavanagh - receiving a much lesser part of the compensation.
Newly filed accounts by Aer Lingus Ltd show that the three executives' total €2.8m in emoluments, including basic pay, remained at the same level as 2022.
Total remuneration for the top directors at the carrier topped €4.04m last year and included almost €1.2m in benefits under long-term incentive schemes.
A note states that the "vesting of these shares is contingent on the achievement of performance conditions in future periods".
Total executive pay to all Aer Lingus executive management, directors and non-executive directors rose by €903,000 from €7.56m to €8.47m.
The increase in pay is largely down to the €1.08m paid out in termination benefits during the year.
A note attached to the accounts states that the senior executive team totalled 10 individuals at the carrier.
During this Summer, executive management at Aer Lingus were at logger-heads with the airline's pilots ina pay row as the pilots' industrial action had a direct impact of €55m over the second and third quarters with an additional impact on forward bookings.
The pilots' pay dispute led to the cancellation of 610 flights due to a two week work-to-rule and an eight-hour strike.
In July, Aer Lingus pilots backed a 17.75% pay rise ending a dispute that affected more than 90,000 travellers this summer.
The accounts were only filed in recent days at the Companies Office but were signed off by the board in March and therefore predate the row with the pilots and do not contain the attendant costs of the dispute to the airline.
Last week the airline posted operating profits of €148m for the nine months to the end of September, down from €236m the same time last year as its results were impacted by the Summer industrial action by pilots at the airline and by market pressures - particularly across the Atlantic.
Aer Lingus is part of the IAG group, which also owns British Airways, Iberia and Vueling.
Last year, Aer Lingus Ltd recorded a pre-tax profit of €185.35m which followed a pre-tax loss of €19m in 2022.
The airline returned to pre-tax profits as revenues surged by 29% from €1.66bn to €2.14bn with the bulk of revenues made up of €2bn in passenger revenues.
The directors state that the company had a strong return to profitability in 2023 with an operating profit of €219m and an operating margin of 10%.
Capacity was increased by 20% from 2022 and Aer Lingus carried circa 10.8m passengers in the year, an increase of 20% from last year.
Staff costs increased from €386.1m to €465.56m last year.
Reporting by Gordon Deegan
