BERLIN (Reuters) -Executive board members at German airline Lufthansa will each receive several million euros in bonuses for 2021 and 2022 despite pandemic-related state aid payments to the carrier during that time, daily Handelsblatt reported on Tuesday.
The supervisory board approved the payments at a meeting in early December, Handelsblatt said, citing company sources.
However, some employee representatives voted against the payment, as they saw it in violation of the rescue package conditions, according to the daily.
A Lufthansa spokesperson told Reuters he could not comment on discussions within the supervisory board.
Government sources played down the bonus report, saying Lufthansa’s board had worked well and the state had come out of the investment with a profit.
The German government’s economic stabilisation fund saved Lufthansa from bankruptcy during the pandemic with a bailout package totalling 9 billion euros ($9.53 billion). The government sold all its shares in the airline in September.
A Lufthansa spokesperson told Handelsblatt that the money would not be paid out until 2025, if everything went well until then, meaning the payments were not retroactive but rather part of a long-term bonus.
($1 = 0.9441 euros)
(Additional reporting by Christian KraemerWriting by Miranda Murray; Editing by Bradley Perrett, Madeline Chambers and Tomasz Janowski)
