Ayling’s cloud has a silver lining

Bob Ayling, the former chief executive of British Airways, got a £1.98 million golden parachute after he was sacked last March as well as receiving £500,000 salary for the 11 months he worked. The airline's annual report also reveals that he gets a pension of £260,000 a year.

As he is only 54 years of age he will pick up £2.86 million in the years up to the normal male retirement age of 65.

Such a pay-off will no doubt soften the blow of losing his job as chair of the company running the Millennium Dome in May. The Millennium Commission gave the New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC) a further £29 million funding on the basis that he resigned that job. Ayling was appointed as unpaid chairman of NMEC in February 1997 by the then Conservative minister with responsibility for the Dome, Roger Freeman.

According to the Companies House database of directorships, Ayling is still a non-executive part-time director of the Australian airline Qantas, where he picked up the equivalent of around £20,000 in the year to June 1999 for attending just four board meetings. He is also a part-time director of the UK insurance group Royal and Sun Alliance, where he collected £31,000 in fees last year.