RYANAIR SHAREHOLDERS HAVE narrowly voted to approve a €99 million bonus scheme for the airline’s CEO Michael O’Leary this morning.

O’Leary’s pay package totalled €3.38 million – or €9,260 a day - in the past year. O’Leary has received a bonus of €770,000 for his performance as he oversaw Ryanair revenues increasing by 6% to €7.6 billion in the 12 months to the end of March this year.

Almost half of investors voted against bonuses for O’Leary at an AGM held in Dublin today according to The Financial Times, which reported that 50.5% voted in favour of the bonus scheme. 

Shareholders are incensed as they have received no dividend payments since 2016, since the no-frills airline became Europe’s most popular with customers.

The company has also been beset with a series of pilot strikes across Europe; the latest is planned by UK pilots for 48 hours from yesterday. 

Ryanair is facing strike action in several other countries, in particular in Spain where a strike has been called to protest the planned closing of some airport bases.

In late July, Ryanair said it would cut 900 jobs from its total workforce of 13,000.

It blamed delays in delivery of Boeing 737 MAX 200 aircraft that were grounded following two fatal accidents.

TheJournal.ie requested attendance to today’s AGM but was refused by Ryanair due to what it described as “capacity” issues.

- with reporting from Orla Dwyer.