Rail bosses awarded big bonuses and pay rises despite strikes
Rail bosses have been awarded significant bonuses and pay rises, it has emerged, as passengers face a further nine days of strikes from Monday.
Executives at private rail firms were given bonuses up to £1 million last year, despite failing to enforce new laws to minimise the impact of industrial action.
The highest paid executive at Arriva - a subsidiary of the German state rail operator Deutsche Bahn, which runs Chiltern, CrossCountry, Grand Central and London Overground – gave its highest-paid executive £1,086,342 in pay and perks last year, a 61 per cent rise.
The audit by the Daily Mail also found that the chief executive at former operator Abellio UK was handed a 35 per cent increase last year.
Bonuses of £1.3 million were shared by FirstGroup’s top executives, Graham Sutherland and Ryan Mangold, and a £540,000 bonus was paid to then chief executive of Go-Ahead, Christian Schreyer, in 2022.
The Government passed legislation last November allowing operators to insist on a minimum service level during strikes.
However, none of the 18 operators hit by nine days of walkouts by train drivers from Monday are implementing the requirement to provide at least 40 per cent of normal services.
Travellers have been warned of disruption to their journeys this week as members of the drivers’ union Aslef launch a rolling programme of walkouts, in addition to a nine-day overtime ban.
Passengers have been urged to check before they travel as there will be changes to services across large parts of the network, with some train operators not running any services.
FirstGroup – owner of Great Western Railway, Lumo, Hull Trains, plus a 70 per cent stake in South Western Railway and Avanti West Coast – awarded its top executives £1.3 million in bonuses in 2022/23, weeks before being stripped of the TransPennine Express contract and despite poor performance at Avanti.
A Department for Transport spokesman said: “Aslef’s leadership alone are responsible for the disruption expected next week.”
A spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group, which represents operators, said: “Minimum service level legislation is one of many useful tools for managing strike disruption, but it is not a silver bullet. Operators’ guiding principle is always to make sure they can offer the best, most reliable services possible for their passengers.”
FirstGroup said the 2022/23 bonuses were driven by “strong financial performance”. Arriva said executive pay was linked to operations across Europe.
Go-Ahead said that its executive pay “reflects the scope and scale of our business”.
