The Canadian Airways Flight Attendant Federation and governance specialist on Monday denounced Montreal’s decision to pay $ 20 million in “incentive bonuses” to its executives and directors.

Implementing these special bonuses enabled Air Canada managers to be rewarded even if the company did not reach its goals in 2020. Under the benchmark performance bonus program, they could receive bonuses of up to $ 45 million, but the company’s net loss of $ 4.7 billion in a year 2020 made these payments impossible.

For governance expert Michel Nadeau, these rewards are simply “unacceptable,” especially since thousands of Air Canada employees have had to make “sacrifices.”

“We are disappointed,” replied Wesley Lisowski, of the Canadian Federation of Public Servants, which represents airline flight attendants.

In addition, Air Canada has decided to grant former CEO Calin Rovinescu and four other senior presidents “share appreciation rights”, the stated aim of which is to allow them to “recover” part of the salary they gave up last year due to the pandemic.

Finally, the Board of Directors used its “discretion” to remove the year 2020 from the long-term incentive bonus calculation for its executives for the period from 2017 to 2020. Including 2020, it would have eliminated the value of these bonuses. .

Over $ 9 Million for Rovinescu

Ultimately, Mr. Rovinescu received nearly $ 9.3 million in 2020 while he received $ 12.9 million in 2019. For his part, former CFO Michael Russo received $ 2.9 million, up from $ 4.4 million in 2019. Mr. Russo 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, Ottawa provided $ 5.9 billion in aid to Air Canada. The agreement reached stipulates that top executives cannot benefit from compensation in excess of $ 1 million (excluding contributions to the retirement plan and end-of-service benefits).