It may look like chicken feed in this era of mammoth executive pay packages, but a combined $21 million in stock payouts to five top executives at American Airlines is looming large in labor talks with pilots still angry about pay concessions made four years ago. The stock bonuses, which are to be paid April 19 and include shares valued yesterday at about $7.5 million for Gerard J. Arpey, chief executive of American, are the subject of angry countdowns on two employee Web sites and can be precisely calculated based on the stock price at the moment on a third employee site. Now that American is profitable and its finances are improving, it does not have the threat of bankruptcy to use to push for concessions, as it did in 2003.
See "Stock Bonuses at American Anger Pilots", Jeff Bailey, The New York Times, March 26, 2007