The Qantas Airways Ltd (ASX: QAN) share price had a fairly grounded session to end the trading week this Friday. Qantas shares ended up closing at $5.24 each, down 0.19% for the day.
That doesn't look great against the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO), which ended up recording a healthy gain of 0.66% to just under 6,900 points.
Perhaps investors didn't like what Qantas had to say in the annual report for FY22 that the ASX airline share released this morning.
There were many things of note contained in this annual report. But perhaps the most striking was the pay packet of Qantas' famous (or perhaps infamous) CEO, Alan Joyce.
The annual report revealed that Joyce received a total remuneration for FY22 of a cool $2.3 million in base salary and other benefits. This was a substantial 15% increase on the salary Joyce received over the FY21 financial year.
This might stick in the craw, to say the least, of some Qantas customers.
Qantas share price loses altitude
As we reported last month, Qantas is arguably struggling with its brand reputation at present. August saw Joyce facing calls to resign. This was parked by customer and employee frustration over delayed and cancelled flights, baggage handling and long airport queues.
In response, Joyce issued an apology last month:
Over the past few months, too many of you have had flights delayed, flights cancelled and bags misplaced… On behalf of the national carrier, I want to apologise and assure you that we're working hard to get back to our best.
The airline further sparked controversy by announcing a $400 million share buyback program during its earnings report on 25 August. As we discussed yesterday, some analysts are calling a buyback on this scale "reckless". Given Qantas' underlying loss of $1.9 billion for FY22 and all.
So, given all of these developments, this news regarding Joyce's salary today might well have gotten up investors' noses during this Friday's session. This could explain why the Qantas share price was such a lacklustre performer today.
