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Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has qualified for share options worth more than €100mn after the airline’s shares hit a key performance target, paving the way for one of the biggest payouts in European corporate history.
Shares in the low-cost carrier closed at €23.74 on Thursday, meaning they have closed at more than €21 for a 28th consecutive day, meeting one of two conditions attached to O’Leary’s bumper pay deal.
The 64-year-old will have to stay at Ryanair until the end of July 2028 to collect the share options — worth more than €111mn — as part of an incentive scheme agreed in 2019.
O’Leary, known for his pugnacious style, defended his potential windfall earlier this month after Ryanair reported a fall in full-year profits.
“I think we’re delivering exceptional value for Ryanair shareholders in an era when premiership footballers or the managers are getting paid €20mn to €25mn a year,” he said.
Ryanair shareholders, he added, were “getting particular value out of our share options — both mine and the rest of the management team”.
O’Leary said that as the options would not vest for another three years, he and the “rest of the management team have to stay here to 2028 and continue to deliver before we can actually get hold of those share options”.
“So they don’t come around for another three years and a lot can happen between now and then,” he added.
O’Leary also signalled he could stay at the airline when his current contract expired in 2028.
“My contract runs out in 2028 and there’ll have to be some discussion I presume with the board as to how my remuneration will be fixed from 2028 onwards, if they want me to stay on after 2028,” he said.
O’Leary’s potential pay deal compares with that of József Váradi, boss of low-cost rival Wizz Air, who stands to earn £100mn if that airline’s share price hits £120 by 2028. But Wizz Air has previously conceded that this was unlikely to be met with the shares trading well below that level.
Bumper pay packages are more common in the US. GE Aerospace chief executive, Larry Culp, received $89mn in 2024, making him one of the highest-paid US executives.
Some European companies including, the London Stock Exchange Group, have been pushing for higher pay rewards for their executives.
Since becoming chief executive of Ryanair in 1994, O’Leary has masterminded the airline’s breakneck growth as it has grown from a small regional airline into a force in global aviation.
The airline has cemented its position as the undisputed leader in European low-cost aviation after using the disruption caused by the pandemic to increase its market share as weaker rivals retrenched.
O’Leary receives a basic salary of €1.2mn a year, but also owns a stake in Ryanair worth about €930mn.
Under the scheme agreed in 2019, he was granted the options to buy 10mn shares at €11.12 each if either the airline’s share price hit €21 for 28 consecutive days, or it reported €2.2bn in annual profits after tax any time up to 2028.
Ryanair said: “If the share price remains above €21 until close of play on Thurs 29 May, then the 28-day share price condition will have been met. However, this is only one of two conditions for the share options to vest.”
Additional reporting by Patrick Temple-West in New York
