Virgin Australia Chief Gets Pay Hike

John Borghetti, the chief executive of Virgin Australia, received a 35-percent increase in his take-home salary. Borghetti’s salary is now at $2.7 million, beating Qantas chief Alan Joyce’s salary.

According to Virgin Australia’s annual report, Borghetti’s compensation also includes about $1.29 million in salary and a little more than $1 million in short-term bonuses.

Qantas chief Alan Joyce, meanwhile, received about $2.28 million this year. Last year, he received about $4 million but he also turned down bonuses.

The latest data showed that Virgin Australia registered a $22.8 million net profit from January to June of this year. This is marked improvement over last year’s data of $68 million loss. The positive results in Virgin’s business are mainly because of the business travel market.

Qantas, meanwhile, registered close to $250 million net loss for 2012. It was the opposite picture as the airline registered about $249 million of profit the year before. According to industry sources, Qantas’ poor performance is because of industrial disputes and several cases of fleet grounding.

Qantas is also in the process of reorganizing its international operations.

Aside from Borghetti, Liz Savage also benefited from Virgin Australia’s solid performance. Savage was former commercial head of Virgin Australia. The company’s annual report showed that Savage receveid about $1.83 million, including $529,000 termination benefits.

Martin Daley, a former Virgin Australia executive, also received close to $400,000 termination benefits. He received a total of $1.36 million compensation package last year.