Originally Posted by Adam Smith

As someone who flies a lot of different airlines, I would tell you that AC's customer service is, overall, decent. As an investor, I would remind you that the board and management's job is to generate returns for the shareholders, and that having the best customer service is not always a profitable decision (you can, in fact, put a price on goodwill; it just may not be as high as some would like). As a customer, I don't really care how management is compensated; I care about the product I get (including the service) and the price I pay.

Call it cognitive dissonance if you want, but there's nothing wrong with seeing something from multiple perspectives. For instance, I've pointed out a number of times in the refund thread that the customer in me was mad at AC about the lack of refunds, but the corporate finance expert in me understood why they were doing it. Obviously those two positions are in opposition.
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There has been some research that incentive-based pay isn't as effective as shareholders would like it to be, and I would agree with you that executive compensation as a whole is is too high (especially for CEOs). But that's a very macro issue, well beyond whether AC should or shouldn't have paid these $10MM of bonuses.