The Highest Paid Cruise Industry CEOs
Photo Credit: Norwegian Cruise Lines CEO Frank Del Rio's paycheck last year was as big as, well, you know. 2020's was even bigger. Source: Adam Gonzales, Unsplash Skift
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Everybody in the cruise business suffered during Covid except CEOs, it seemed. As passengers canceled or got sick, and workers got laid off, executive compensation topped 1,000 times the median worker's pay. Including tips.
Don't take the media's word for it that Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings CEO Frank Del Rio is overpaid.
Ask Norwegian's shareholders, who rejected his compensation package by a 5.5-1 vote margin at Norwegian's annual meeting June 16. The non-binding vote won't keep the Del Rio from keeping the $19.7 million he got paid last year. But it was the second straight year the company's shareholders turned thumbs down: Del Rio's $36.4 million 2020 pay, as the industry all but foundered, was disapproved in a 5-1 vote.
"Norwegian had the lowest level of support for pay of any Standard and Poor's 500 index company," said Rosanna Landis Weaver, an executive pay expert at As You Sow, a non-profit that promotes corporate accountability through shareholder advocacy and litigation.
Cruise company CEO wages have become a lightning rod in the larger debate about income inequality, Weaver said. And the disparity between cruise-industry bosses and their workers is the la
