Jan. 29 (UPI) — Johan Lundgren, the new chief executive of EasyJet, will take a pay cut to match the salary of his female predecessor, the European airline announced Monday.
The pay of Lundgren, who took over in December, will decrease $48,000 to $994,000 each year to match the salary of the previous leader of the British-based budget carrier, Carolyn McCall, the company said in a press release.
Lundgren previously was a deputy chief executive at travel group Tui.
“At EasyJet we are absolutely committed to giving equal pay and equal opportunity for women and men,” Lundgren said in the release.
“To show my personal commitment, I have asked the board to reduce my pay to match that of Carolyn’s when she was at EasyJet. I also want to affirm my own commitment to address the gender imbalance in our pilot community, which drives our overall gender pay gap.”
In November, EasyJet revealed it had gender pay gap of 52 percent although it said it pays men and women the same amount for the same work. About 5 percent of its pilots are women but the carrier said it hired 49 women pilots in 2017, an increase of 48 percent from the previous year.
“This is a great achievement given the deep-seated view in society that being a pilot is a male job and means the airline is on track to meet our 2020 target,” EasyJet said.
But the company said: “We recognize we need to do better.”
McCall joined British broadcaster ITV earlier this month and is paid $1.3 million annually, which her new company described as “broadly the same remuneration opportunity” as her male predecessor.
Last week, six of the BBC’s leading male presenters agreed to take pay cuts after revelations over equal salaries.
