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What is it with executives and corporate jets? Citigroup took another beating this week for buying a $50 million plane after taking billions in bailout money. Worse, the plane was French. The criticism, from President Obama down, prompted Citi to cancel the jet it ordered in 2005, when cash was flowing.
So soon after the heads of Detroit's big three car companies were lampooned for taking private jets to Washington to plead for taxpayer money, it seems this is the one perk executives find hardest to give up.
They should take a leaf from Warren Buffett's book. Here is a multibillionaire who could easily build his own airport and keep a fleet of jumbos, yet what does he do? Since 1995, he's used NetJets, which offers fractional ownership of aircraft. You have access to planes whenever you need them, to fly wherever you'd like. It costs more than commercial, but much less than owning your own plane.
Having enjoyed the service, Buffett bought NetJets in 1998. In ads for the company, he poses in a plane with Bill Gates, shoeless and tieless, relaxing on a business trip.
News of Citi's klutzy plane purchase broke on the same day it ordered thousands of employees, many in New York, to adhere to a new air-travel policy that required: economy travel only, bought seven days in advance, except for “client-facing red-eye flights over eight hours”, when business class was permitted. First class was forbidden. No policy was set for private jets.
* The dust-up between John “Trash Can” Thain and Bank of America has been a gift to headline writers. Ken Lewis, who ousted Thain after Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch, has been dubbed “The bane of Thain.” Best of all, though, was a column in The New York Post titled: “The Reign of Thain Was Mainly Just a Pain”.
* If there was any company that was going to profit from President Obama's pledge to invest billions in America's infrastructure, from roads and bridges to schools, it was Caterpillar. And yet on Monday, the world's largest maker of construction equipment announced it was cutting 20,000 jobs. The stimuli here and abroad cannot come soon enough.
