Scottish airline Loganair acted “perversely and irrationally” towards a former director whose bonus was thousands of pounds less than it should have been, a tribunal has found.

Ashley Roy, former director of charter services, has been awarded almost £4,500 by an employment tribunal after bosses paid him a bonus of 5% of his £112,000 salary, when he was entitled to at least 9%.

The tribunal found that Loganair managing director Jonathan Hinkles, who decided the 2018/19 bonus, was annoyed by Mr Roy’s “brusque” management style and his close relationship with Loganair owner Peter Bond.

Employment judge Alexander Kemp said that Mr Hinkles was so unhappy, he became “somewhat blind” to Mr Roy’s achievements when calculating his bonus.

Judge Kemp said: “Overall therefore I consider that the respondent did act perversely and irrationally in that it made a decision on the disputed bonus that no reasonable employer would have reached, and in so doing was in breach of contract.”

He awarded the claimant £4,492.32.

The tribunal heard that Mr Roy, now based in Australia, had worked for Mr Bond in various roles for about 20 years and in 2015, he was employed as a consultant to appraise Loganair’s charter division.

After completing his report, he was asked to take up the role of director of charter services, with a bonus in place offering up to 25% of his annual salary.

A judgment on the case states: “The details of that bonus were not specified, and were to be discussed between them.”

In 2017, after several attempts by Mr Roy to progress his bonus, Mr Hinkles produced a matrix to calculate the payment he was due for two financial years.

This was based on the financial performance of the charter division, company profitability, operational delivery and customer satisfaction and team dynamic.

For the 2015/16 period, he was awarded a bonus of 14%, the following year he received 22% and in 2017/18 he received 15.5%.

In February 2019, he confirmed his plans to resign and work three months’ notice.

He finished working for Loganair on May 11 and sought to arrange payment of his bonus for the 2018/19 period, however that was not forthcoming.

He then lodged a claim at the employment tribunal and Mr Hinkles agreed to award him a bonus of 5%, which amounted to a total of £5,615.25.

The judgment states: “The claimant replied stating that he did not accept any payment made by the respondent ‘as being in full and final settlement until such time that the Employment Tribunal rules or a mutual agreement is reached’.”

The tribunal found that Mr Hinkles did not apply the matrix correctly when it came to calculating the bonus.

It added that he proceeded on the basis of incorrect information and failed to take account of relevant information, while considering information that wasn’t relevant to the matrix.

Judge Kemp said: “I consider that Mr Hinkles had become so dissatisfied with the claimant’s style, and his ability to contact Mr Peter Bond outwith normal line management, that he became somewhat blind to what the claimant achieved, and focussed on the perceived deficiencies when carrying out his assessment, including those outwith the relevant time period. No reasonable employer would have done so.”

He said that the managing director “over-stated” the criticism of Mr Roy’s management style, and added: “There was I consider a mind set against the claimant and giving him a bonus on the part of Mr Hinkles.”

A spokesman for Loganair said: “Loganair proceeded to an Employment Tribunal in a case where a former employee was resolutely demanding a bonus payment of over £24,000. The company rejected an out-of-court offer from the former employee to settle at £14,500 and in its judgment, the tribunal awarded him the amount of £4,492.

“The level of the Tribunal’s award is a clear vindication of Loganair’s stance in defending the claim as brought by the former employee.”

Earlier this year, The Herald revealed how Loganair lost another key argument at an employment tribunal in a dispute with pilots over claims the firm failed to act appropriately in the wake of the FlyBMI collapse.

Loganair took over several of the routes operated by FlyBMI and employed 145 of its workers - including 80 pilots.

Pilots union BALPA claimed the airline, which had the same parent company as FLyBMI, should have transferred staff over under TUPE regulations and the tribunal found in their favour on the preliminary issue of whether or not the moves were TUPE transfers.

However Loganair said it planned to appeal the decision.