(by Andrew von Nordenflycht, Airline Industry Council)

The issue of executive compensation is looming large in the current and impending labor negotiations across airlines, especially of course at American. So I was curious about the relative state of airline executive pay.

Below is a quick analysis of average CEO compensation at airlines vs. across the industry as a whole each year from 1992 to 2006. It shows that on average, airline CEOs always receive lower salaries and bonuses than the economy-wide average — and that this gap widened considerably after 2000.  So while airline CEOs certainly take home higher compensation than airline employees, they certainly take home less than other CEOs — and they have certainly experienced reduced salary and bonuses since the industry’s post-9/11 restructuring began. (a few data details provided below the charts). I will try to post additional analyses over time.

These statistics are based on the ExecuComp database. They consider cash compensation only, thus excluding any stock-based compensation. The data are from publicly-traded companies only. The airline average is comprised of 18 US airlines, including 7 major legacy carriers, 4 low-cost carriers, and 7 regional and commuter airlines.