Qantas exec bonuses slashed $800,000 following cyber breach
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The news: Qantas has announced that chief executive Vanessa Hudson and the executive management team had their short term 2024-25 bonuses slashed “in recognition of the seriousness” of a cyber incident that affected up to six million customers.
Former CEO Alan Joyce has also secured a final bonus share package worth an equivalent of $3.8 million under a pre-existing long term incentive plan.
The numbers: The CEO and executive management short term incentive plan was reduced by 15 percentage points, effectively reducing the CEO’s bonus by $250,000, according to Qantas' 2025 annual report. The total reduction for the executive management team, excluding the CEO, was $550,000.
The executive team together received $5.8 million in base pay for FY25 and $18.9 million when including all other benefits including shares. Hudson’s total remuneration has increased by 44% to $6.3 million.
Qantas' share price was up 1.49% to $11.96 in early trading following the publication of its annual report. Over the last 12 months it has rocketed 74.78%.
The context: On 2 July, Qantas told the exchange that a “significant” proportion of personal data from up to six million customer records was stolen through a cyber incident affecting a call centre platform on 30 June.
Qantas obtained an interim injunction from the NSW Supreme Court on 17 July that aims to prevent the publication of the stolen information. Maurice Blackburn has filed a representative complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner on behalf of affected customers.
Forensic investigation and other work “to learn from the incident and further increase resilience” are still ongoing, according to Qantas.
What they said: “While we recognise that the investigations into this incident may not be finalised for some time and there may be other outworkings, we believe it is important for both our executives and shareholders that the remuneration consequences of this incident be dealt with this year,” the annual report reads.
Qantas chair John Mullen said the executive remuneration cut was made “in recognition of the seriousness of the incident”.
The source: Qantas 2025 annual report
