Geoff Dixon has retired as Qantas CEO but not before feeling the ire of shareholders outraged over his $12.2 million package.
The Qantas annual general meeting, held in Brisbane on Friday, was Mr Dixon's last before handing over to Jetstar boss Alan Joyce.
Mr Dixon said he left Qantas "very confident indeed of its soundness as a business", as well as the scale and quantity of its operations.
While some shareholders thanked him for his eight years of service, others voiced their anger at his hefty pay packet.
Lisa Marshall said Qantas defended its executive salaries as a means to retain the best managers, while it offered its other staff a payrise of only three per cent in the last wage talks.
Also an Australian Services Union representative, Ms Marshall said the staff deal was a "slap in the face" - less than the CPI, and the deals reached for Brisbane City Council and Queensland Health administration staff.
"It's disgusting that you can keep continually raising your salaries, giving yourselves slaps on the back and yet it has never filtered down to the people underneath you," she said.
Rod Shaw told fellow shareholders it was an "obscene" salary, and they had a moral and fiscal responsibility to reject the company's remuneration report.
"The past practice of giving excessive amounts to executives willy nilly will cease," Mr Shaw said.
"Shareholders and the general public are tired of these excesses ... even the prime minister of the country has committed to addressing the obscene salaries and benefits being paid to CEOs and executives."
Qantas remuneration committee chairman James Strong told the meeting the $12.2 million figure was not a true reflection of Mr Dixon's wage, as it included shares calculated at about $5 each that were now worth about $2.30, and other factors.
The remuneration report was narrowly passed in the advisory vote.
Chairman Leigh Clifford later downplayed the issue.
"Our remuneration vote was actually in favour of it, as you know a number of companies in their AGMs have had their advisory vote voted down," Mr Clifford told reporters.
"There are a couple of suggestions that I'll reflect upon ... I think things were clouded a little bit by the distorting effect of one-off payments, retention bonus, etc, to Geoff and the actual calculation of share values."
Mr Joyce said his management style would be a continuation of Mr Dixon's, and controversy over his salary should not eclipse his legacy.
"I only hope I can contribute the same that he's done," he said. "I think it's a credit, what he's achieved in the organisation, I think that should be the focus of Geoff's retirement today."
Mr Clifford said he didn't find the meeting particularly emotional.
"I don't think it was heated," he said.
"I've been to a few AGMs in my time and I would have said this was a little less heated than many."
