For scoring low, you still get to fly high

For the exclusive club of airline CEOs, performance has nothing to do with pay. First off, all these guys qualify as cannibals because they take home over a million in salary, bonuses, and exercised options EACH YEAR. What I'd like to summarize here is the performance from these high flying fancy boys versus how much they wrangle in all compensation including options not yet exercised.

The score card:

US Airways. CEO Douglas Parker $26 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $61/share in May 2007 to a virtual backruptcy of $4/share today.

Continental Airlines. CEO Gordon Bethune $22 million in 2004
under his helm stock price fell from $17/share in January 2004 to $9/share in January 2005

United Airlines. CEO Glenn Tilton $10 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $50/share in January 2007 to $7/share today.

Skywest. CEO Jerry C. Atkin $9.9 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $28/share in January 2007 to $15/share today.

American Airlines. CEO Gerard Arpey $7.9 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $40/share in January 2007 to $13/share in January 2008

JetBlue. CEO David Barger $5.2 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $17/share in January 2007 to under $4/share today.

Mesa Airlines. CEO Jonathan G Ornstein $4.1 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $8/share in January 2007 to a virtual backruptcy of $.72/share today. (that's 72 cents!)

Delta Airlines. CEO Richard Anderson $3.3 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $21/share in April 2007 to a virtual backruptcy of $6/share today.

Southwest. CEO Gary C. Kelly $3.1 million in 2007
Stock price nudged down from $16/share in January 2007 to $13/share today.

Northwest Airlines. CEO Douglas M. Steenland $2.6 million in 2007
Stock price fell from $26/share in May 2007 to a virtual backruptcy of $7/share today.

Because Mesa (via Go! Airlines) wiped out Aloha, Hawaiian is gaining because of little, and soon no, competition:

Hawaiian Airlines. CEO Mark B. Dunkerley $2.7 million in 2007
Stock PRICES GAINED from $3/share in March of 2007 to $7/share today.

You can say these guys are doing the best they can in a downturning economy, but do they really have to make these obscene amounts of money while they drive their companies off the cliff?

Each one of these personal payouts could be downsized and save not dozens, but hundreds, and in the case of some, thousands of living wage jobs.

Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest, is one of the lowest compensated in the bunch and has made some of the smartest decisions, like getting a fixed price on aircraft fuel for the next couple of years.

On the other hand, Douggie Parker of US Airways, made truly the worst decisions in the industry, and received the highest compensation.



Sooooo...bigger compensation does not equal better performance....laid out clearly here on Cannibal Planet.

Crash and burn baby.