EasyJet CEO takes pay cut in equal pay commitment

Lundgren - whose starting annual salary of £740,000 will be reduced to £706,000 to match what was earned by Carolyn McCall when she left EasyJet - asked the board to make the change to show his personal commitment to equal pay. In all other respects, his remuneration package is the same as McCall's.

"I also want to affirm my own commitment to address the gender imbalance in our pilot community which drives our overall gender pay gap. EasyJet has already gone further than other airlines in trying to attract more women into a career as a pilot. I want us not just to hit our target that 20% of our new pilots should be female by 2020 but to go further than this in the future."

The gender pay gap at EasyJet is currently 51.7%, a gap the company attributes not to unequal pay for women but to the "massive gender imbalance" in its and the aviation industry's pilot community.

Having recognised the imbalance, EasyJet launched its Amy Johnson Initiative three years ago to encourage more women to become pilots, setting a target for 20% of new pilots to be female by 2020, up from just 6% in 2015. Last year, the airline recruited 49% female new entrant co-pilots, which marked a 48% rise on the previous year.

At 1220 GMT, the shares were down 0.4% to 1,682.34p.