Air Canada’s massive losses in 2020 and massive layoffs have not prevented Montreal from paying $ 20 million in “incentive bonuses” to its managers.

Implementing these special bonuses allowed executives to be rewarded even if Air Canada didn’t meet its financial goals in the past year. Under the Standard Performance Rewards Program, they could have earned up to $ 45 million in bonuses, but the company’s net loss of $ 4.7 billion in 2020 made those payments impossible.

In addition, Air Canada decided to grant former CEO Calin Rovensco and four other top bosses “equity appreciation rights”, the stated aim of which is to allow them to “recover” part of the salary they gave up last year. Pandemic.

Finally, the carrier’s board of directors used its “discretion” to remove the year 2020 from the long-term incentive bonus calculation assigned to its managers for the period from 2017 to 2020. Include the year. The year 2020 in the account would have been eliminated by the value of those bonuses.

Over $ 9 Million for Rovinescu

Ultimately, Mr Rovinescu received nearly $ 9.3 million in 2020 while he earned $ 12.9 million in 2019.

For his part, former CFO Michael Russo got $ 2.9 million, compared to $ 4.4 million in 2019. Russo became CEO in February.

Remember that since the start of the pandemic, Air Canada has laid off more than half of its workforce, or 21,700 workers, and received more than $ 650 million in wage support.

In April, the Trudeau government awarded $ 5.9 billion in aid to Air Canada. The agreement reached with Ottawa states that company executives will not be able to benefit from an annual compensation in excess of $ 1 million (excluding retirement plan payments and end of service benefits).