I am just going to copy what I wrote on another thread about this. The short version is that any multi-hundred-billion-dollar company that sends its CEO around on commercial airlines is grossly irresponsible. This is class warfare of the most distorted kind. The time of a top-level officer of such a company genuinely IS worth more than the cost of charter air travel. The cost of having said ceo spend 100 hours a year checking in, 2 full work-days a year lost to missed connections/delays, etc., is huge. My previous post -
“the entire class warfare stuff about corporate planes is really being distorted beyond reason, at least in terms of the need of corporate officers to get to point B from point A without spending the night in atlanta (or DFW ORD DTW MSP etc) when their flight is late and their connection gone, not to mention the hours spend in check-in, baggage claim, etc.
If you are CEO or other major officer of a major company (billions in revenue), the cost to the company of you being out of functional circulation, particularly unplanned as in cxl’ed flights, is just too high to justify risking flying Delta. Whether the company charters, leases, owns, etc., is in part semantics. I don’t doubt that planes are used by officers for recreational motives also, but imagine one of those ceo’s at the congressional hearing not showing up because delta had an equipment issue.”
“The short version is that any multi-hundred-billion-dollar company that sends its CEO around on commercial airlines is grossly irresponsible.”
I don’t think anyone has a beef with a profitable company owning a corporate jet and flying anyone they wish on it.
The problem is when your company is technically, if not actually bankrupt - and the government is providing the cash that keeps your bankrupt enterprise afloat. In this case, a company will be criticized for spending money flying their CEO on a corporate jet, because, the government gave them the money.
This is not class envy - if an enterprise is bankrupt, the CEO should be flying economy class (if at all) - and preserving capital above all else.
Congress, when controlled by democrats, will flying the wings off of any jet they can get their hands on.