This study focuses on airlines’ CEOs’ pay cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic and their salaries’ recovery in the period after this. Using secondary data sources, we identified the airlines’ CEOs’ pay cuts that several leaders have accepted as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and examined the publicity that these measures have attracted. Furthermore, we evaluated whether the desired results of this action have been achieved and identified the salaries’ levels after COVID-19. The findings from this study show that although leadership flexibility and action according to the environmental conditions are crucial factors in guiding the leadership paradigm, however, CEOs’ pay cuts were not enough to show empathy to the employees during COVID-19. The travel recovery in the Northern Hemisphere in the summer 2022 coincided with flight cancellations, delays, and long queues at the airports worldwide due to staff shortages. In the period after the COVID-19 pandemic, airlines’ CEOs’ packages increased substantially and, in most cases, disproportionally compared to the staff’s salaries, which still have not fully recovered to pre-COVID-19 levels.