Love him or loathe him, Michael O’Leary is considered one of the brightest airline chief executives in the industry and is credited with transforming Ryanair from a failing small regional Irish carrier into the biggest airline by passenger numbers in Europe.
Having worked at Ryanair for more than three decades, initially as the airline’s chief financial officer, before taking on the CEO role just six years later, you might think that O’Leary, affectionately known just as MOL within Ryanair, would be on the verge of retirement.
It’s an idea that the 65-year-old has openly toyed with, but the mere prospect of the architect of Ryanair’s phenomenal success departing the airline is something that its board of directors is willing to contemplate.
The problem that faced the board, however, is that MOL’s current contract is set to expire in July 2028. If Ryanair were to convince O’Leary to stay on, it would have to make it worth his while.
During the last round of contract negotiations, Ryanair offered to pay O’Leary a bonus worth around €100 million (US $114 million), paid in shares of 10 million.
The bonus was contingent on Ryanair’s share price hitting and staying at €21 for at least 28 days, or the airline’s annual profit after tax exceeding €2.2 billion. Ryanair achieved the share price target in 2025, while the profit after tax target was recently reached after the Ryanair Group posted a profit of €2.26 billion.
While O’Leary is now able to cash in those shares, the board offered a second chance to earn an additional 10 million shares if he were to stay on as chief executive of the Ryanair Group, which includes subsidiary carriers like Buzz, Malta Air, and Lauda, through April 2032.
Ryanair has been locked in talks for months with MOL over the deal, while also working to convince the airline’s largest institutional shareholders that keeping O’Leary at the helm justified a potential €100 million price tag.
On Friday, Ryanair announced that shareholders had approved the deal on conditions that the airline’s profit after tax grows to over €4 billion, or if the share price hits and stays at €42 for at least 28 days.
Explaining the rationale for the deal, the airline said on Friday that achieving “these very ambitious targets would create substantial additional value for all Ryanair shareholders.”
Although the potential bonus is huge by any standard, O’Leary’s regular salary is pretty modest by airline CEO standards. In 2025, financial records show that O’Leary earned a fixed basic salary of just €1.2 millon. On top of that, O’Leary is eligible for a bonus not more than 50% of his base salary.
In the last reporting period, O’Leary was awarded the full €600,000 bonus, which was slightly more than for full year 2024, when O’Leary earned €588,000 in bonuses.
As for the first €100 million bonus, O’Leary doesn’t yet have this money in the bank. Under the terms of the deal, he will only be permitted to vest these shares between April 2028 and February 2029.
