All aboard the TfL gravy train: more than 1,300 staff on over £100,000

... and there's a £49,000 bonus for man who gave you the new extended Ulez

- Ross Lydall

MORE than 1,300 staff at Transport for London received salaries and bonuses totalling more than £100,000 in the most recent year, it can be revealed today.

A total of 1,319 earned a six-figure package in 2023/24-up 72 per cent on the 766 whose earnings exceeded £100,000 in the previous financial year.

TfL said this was largely due to two years of bonuses being paid last year. These had been held back until it was confirmed that TfL, which runs the Tube and bus networks and the ultra-low emission zone, had achieved "financial sustainability" after the pandemic.

Earlier this week it was revealed that TfL had made its first-ever "operating surplus", of £138 million, in 2023-24, which Mayor Sadiq Khan described as a "remarkable achievement".

The money is ploughed back into TfL but the organisation remains reliant on government help for major infrastruc ture schemes, such as the long-awaited signalling upgrade on the Piccadilly line or hopes of extending the Bakerloo line and the Docklands Light Railway into south-east London.

The bonus period includes the opening of the Elizabeth line - now the busiest railway line in the country and the recovery from the depths of lockdown, when Tube passenger numbers fell below five per cent of normal.