Soaring paycheck at national airline
Martin Gauss, head of Latvia's national airline airBaltic, earned just over €1 million last year as reported by LETA. He thus earned more than Pekka Vauramo, head of Finnair, as well as the boss of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines - they earned €0.866 million and €0.855 million respectively.
However Finnair served four times more passengers than airBaltic - Latvia's national airline - and KLM served ten times as many.
Neither Gauss, nor the Transport Ministry commented this matter.
The wages at airBaltic are set by the company's council. Council chairman Nikolajs Bulmanis told De Facto that under Gauss' leadership the company had met its goals, including over profits.
It appears from his remarks that Gauss' basic pay is around €0.5 million while the rest is made up of bonuses, reported De Facto.
Telecoms head earns thrice as much as other Baltic CEOs
Meanwhile Juris Gulbis who serves as the head of Lattelecom internet and television company, earned €313,242 last year.
De Facto noted that his pay is thrice as much as the average earnings of telecoms bosses in the Baltics.
It is also considerably more than the earnins of Marie Ehrling, the head of Telia Sonera which owns part of Lattelecom. She earned €193,105 last year.
The company's council refused comment over Gulbis' soaring paycheck. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gulbis was also among the most vocal opponents last year of a tax on very high earners.
The state can only set the pay of fully state-owned companies, while on companies that are co-owned by private persons, the company's council can hand out bonuses as it sees fit.
