Rebecca Sharpe, the company’s chief financial officer, became the second-highest paid director and pocketed 35.8 per cent more at HK$9.71 million last year from HK$7.15 million in 2022.

Cathay chairman Patrick Healy also received HK$8.66 million last year, a pay rise of 38.56 per cent compared with HK$6.25 million in 2022.

Alex McGowan, who was appointed executive director in April 2023, took home HK$4.63 million last year. McGowan, the company’s chief operations and service delivery officer, apologised for a flight cancellation blunder at the beginning of this year.

It was the highest profit since 2010, when the figure hit HK$14 billion.

But in March, CEO Lam announced the firm was pushing back the timeline to restore its passenger flight capacity to pre-pandemic levels by three months from the end of 2024 to the first quarter of next year, citing a shortage of pilots.

The company has come under fire by the government and the community for its “chaotic management” over the cancellations of 786 flights between last December and February – more than 4 per cent of its total operations.

Despite the hefty profit last year, Lam declined to offer passengers perks, such as discounts, on tickets amid growing calls for the company to give back to the community, saying it must adhere to prudent spending.

Lam reiterated Cathay’s earlier profits would partly be used to repay the government, “which I know is taxpayers’ money”.

The government provided a multibillion-dollar bailout to help the company survive the pandemic in 2020. Preference shares worth HK$19.5 billion were issued to the government as part of the recapitalisation deal.

Cathay bought back half of the shares for HK$9.75 billion last December and said it planned to acquire the remainder by the end of July.

The company earlier declared an interim dividend of 43 HK cents per ordinary share for last year, accounting for about HK$2.77 billion.

As of the end of December last year, the group had hired more than 23,800 people worldwide, a rise of 13.8 per cent from the preceding year, with about 19,600 in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association, which represents Cathay pilots, accused the company’s directors of “gouging” taxpayers and staff benefits, as it urged the government on Wednesday to conduct a full independent inquiry into the senior management’s handling of the pandemic and its impact on aviation in the city.

“Cathay directors used the pandemic as an opportunity to first gouge the taxpayers, then their staff and now the travelling public,” it said.

The association said the hefty salary increases were “rewarding failure”, adding the airline’s slow recovery was due to its poor management, which resulted in the sacking of pilots and the reduction of their pay, greatly affecting service quality.

“It beggars belief that with Hong Kong aviation hobbled and cancellations over Christmas, that directors should pay themselves 20 per cent more than they did before the pandemic,” it said.

“All this is a result of the actions of executives who used the taxpayer bailout during the pandemic … to shore up Swire Pacific control of the airline, sack 1,000 pilots, and slash the pay and conditions of frontline staff causing many more to leave.”

Swire Pacific is Cathay’s largest shareholder.