GM CEO To Continue Flying Private, Company Will Downsize Jet Fleet

From ABC News:

General Motors said today that it is putting two of its five corporate jets out of service because the planes are not being used enough. The top three executives at GM, however, will continue to use the private luxurious jets for all of their business and personal travel, despite a flurry of criticism over the perk following an ABC News report this week.

An ABC News investigation revealed that the top three automakers have together spent several hundred million dollars to buy, maintain, and operate a fleet of top-of-the-line private jets for their top executives.

Comments

[munki]

I do not think GM CEO worth what is being paid...
fly any US carriers... let money circulate in American industries!
If we have to show pride to our auto industry, auto industry can do the same to American carriers...

[LBA7895]

Keep the jets, fire Waggoner and the other freeloaders...
Overpaid underperformers, that's for sure!!!

[Meggie]

Why fly the CEO around when he doesn't even know what the business plan is?

BTW, CEO - keeping one jet for yourself will still have you flying into Washington on a private jet the next time you go to ask for money. Same picture - still don't get it?

[JamesInDenver]

It's time to eat a little humble pie.

At this point the jets symbolize executive greed and arrogance. So I guess congress needs to apply a little more pressure to get rid of them all. Let them buy new jets after they repay the taxpayer funded bailouts. (The jets may save the CEO's a little time, but lets face it, there is a lot of Status in flying on a private jet, and at this point these guys don't deserve it.)

[frantaylor]

There is no "status" in flying on a corporate jet. Sometimes repairmen and lowly engineers have to do it too. It is no more comfortable than riding on a train or a bus. You land at odd hours in odd airports. It's really no fun at all and I would much rather stay home.

[Invox]

Wow. Such sacrifice.

[itolduso]

Let them keep the planes and put the CEO's & top execs on performance-based salaries.

[Village]

We should let them to through bankruptcy. We need new and better car companies. I don't think even bankruptcy is going to wipe those smug smirks off their faces. The Ford dude is making 10 mil a year, he says he's good.

[LBA7895]

I couldn't possibly agree more. If I FUBAR'd my employer the way they have, I'd be fired in a nanosecond!

[Montanan4Obama]

Deja Vu. We have been here before with auto industry. They failed to learn from their mistakes thirty years ago. I'm sorry, but no CEO is worth $14 million, not ever! But especially when the leadership lacks vision and is running the company into the ground. If we are telling teachers their pay should be commensurate with the performance of their schools, then why not CEO's, particularly when they come begging for taxpayers money?

I do not want to see the auto industry fail (my family are GM retirees). However, I believe the upper management of these companies are so disconnected from reality they will simply not "get it". We need a new business culture in this country, but change may not come until we have sunk to the bottom.

[feo]

No right fielder is worth $14 million either, but that's what they get paid. So a guy who runs a major company with hundreds of thousands of employees gets the same pay as a baseball player? Think we have things a little out of whack in this country?

[Meggie]

The right fielder is gone if he doesn't perform. Instant feedback from the stands, too.
The CEO of GM hasn't gotten the picture for years.

[Loki11467]

I say let them fly coach.

[LBA7895]

I
SAY
LET
THEM
EACH
DRIVE
ONE
OF
THEIR
OWN
P.O.S.
CARS
WHEREEVER
THEY
NEED
TO
GET
TO....

[frantaylor]

If you are going to pay someone a lot of money to rescue your company, you are much smarter to get them quickly from one place to another on a private plane than to pay them to stand on line in an airport. I want my executives to be working on making better cars instead of dealing with long lines.

Laugh if you will at their high salaries but realize that hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on these people being able to do their jobs successfully.

[frantaylor]

If more than a couple of people are flying together it is usually cheaper to charter a plane than for everyone to purchase tickets on a commercial flight.

If an organization is flying high-value people to meetings on a regular basis, it is cheaper to own the plane outright than to charter or lease one.

I see no problem with large corporations owning their own aircraft. In the long run it is certainly cheaper than buying lots of last-minute, full-price, airline tickets.

[Invox]

Except when they're asking taxpayers for $25 billion. I wouldn't argue the point if I was them. They can't afford to do that.

[KOisGod]

You're kidding

[bujeeboo]

She's right!

[DelvinMcGee]

You couldn't be more wrong. The cost to fly to Washingon last week was between $20K and $28,000. First class flights were less than $1000.

[frantaylor]

Are you also counting the salaries of the people that are being flown? I'd rather that they travel quickly, spend less time in airports, and spend more time doing their jobs.

[jazabelz]

Frantaylor -- someone has pulled the wool over your eyes. If one flight (one person) is at least $20,000, then consider they fly even once a week (52 weeks) equals $1,040,000!!!!! I would venture that they fly more than once a week -- let's say twice a week ($2,080,000). There is no excuse for this and if their salaries are so large that they can save that much by flying privately, then their salaries need to be reduced. There is no one that is worth that much money. ECO Salaries and benefits have gotten way out of line and its about time the American public and workers start demanding more parity in income and benefits.

[frantaylor]

I am not saying that they need to fly around in decked-out planes. There are stripped-down, low-budget corporate jets, too. They are very similar to the planes used by regional airlines. They do not cost bazillions of dollars to fly. I worked for a VERY frugal company (they did not bother to remove the logos of the previous owners of their buildings!) and yet they flew the bigshots around in their own corporate jet because it was the cheapest and most effective way to do it. If commercial flights were cheaper, they would have done it, trust me.

[curly2]

How can they use these jets for personal travel? Do the individual executives pay taxes on personal flights, as if it's income?

[Meggie]

Must be like a company car - you just sort of use it all the time while you can.

[DFL]

TIME IS MONEY, THEY STILL NEED AT LEAST ONE JET.

[DeathOfIrony]

They should use Google chat with video and stay home. In other cases, jets should only be used for company business, not to fly home to Seattle on the taxpayers dime. Otherwise, I hereby volunteer to be the GM CEO, and I'll fly coach.

Didn't Iococca take a $1 a year salary, and would only get paid if he would turn a profit?

[mjb5406]

Yes, but that was before corporate CEOs figured out they could get paid handsomely for running a failing company.

[Meggie]

Phone, Internet, Fax....

[makeanimpact]

Sell all the jets and cut executive pay and bonuses. Period.

[breezyholler]

I second that emotion...makeanimpact !

[frantaylor]

You might as well just put them out of business and avoid the agony if that is your opinion. There is no way a big company is going to get itself back on its feet if its executives cannot travel to see its own operations.

[mjb5406]

There are other modes of transportation that they can use, i.e. commercial jets. Besides, I'm betting that if you looked at the past few years of private jet use by the Big 3, you'd see very little of it used for visiting corporate operations.

[nevergiveup]

I agree.

These CEOs and their corporate toys could put thousands of people to work.

The rich do not deserve to be rich--they just think they do.

[ngannon]

All of these executives should sell all of the unnecessary assets and work for zero dollars until they straighten out the mess that they have made. I am really tired of people blaming the unions when it is so obvious that the people who run these companies have been greedy, unscrupulous and shortsighted. The execs. have not given the public what they need- green, efficient cars- because they have been only in it to make maximum profit for themselves and the shareholders. Now it has fallen apart and they still live like they are making billions. These companies need to be totally reorganized. We can't allow millions of people to lose their jobs but we can put people on their boards if we invest tax money in these companies. The robber baron mentality has got to go.

[jazabelz]

For the most part, I agree with you. I'm not trying to diminish the greed and disregard for the environment by Executive Management, the Boards of Directors, Stockholders and Wallstreet, however the American public has historically wanted larger and larger, more powerful cars and didn't really care about mileage or the environment. Obviously, the car manufacturers were not going to cut off their noses to spite their faces. It has only been within the last few months that American began clamoring for more fuel efficient cars and only because it hurt their pocketbooks, not because of their concern for the environment.

[nevergiveup]

These CEOs have refused to build green cars, smaller cars and fuel efficient cars for decades. They have fought California's laws that required them to build hybrids and EVs if they wanted to sell cars in California. Instead of doing the right thing, they spent millions on lawyers to fight that law.

Meanwhile, Japanese car companies followed the law, built the cars and now they OWN the California car market with hundreds of thousands of hybrids and EVs on the road. Greenspan was wrong when he expected that corporate America would act in their own best interests. That's why we're in this mess.

Any Corporation that is too big to fail, who acted without thought to their greed, deserves to FAIL.

No more bailouts for Corporate America. No more Corporate Welfare. No more Corporate subsidies. It's time for our government to subsidize small businesses who are providing all the new jobs and really building the businesses we need in the 21st century. This self-righteous "act" that Corporate America is putting on is just a front for their greed and corruption.

Get rid of all those jets, all those bonuses, all those CEO salaries that are 200 or 300 times the salary of the average worker. Small business owners don't run their businesses this way--just the Corporate World--and it is they who have screwed up not just the US economy, but they've poisoned the world economy as well.

Let's break up corporations that're too big to fail.

[GeorgeP922]

Ever hear of GoToMeeting dot com?

Much cheaper than a private jet.

Honestly, I wish the UAW brought out the sledge hammer and went to work on these somnabeetches!

[frantaylor]

Been there, done that.

Internet meetings do not work for meetings with complex agendas. You need to be in the room with the people that you are working with, you need to see their body language and how they react to your remarks or else you are not going to be able to be persuasive with your arguments.

[mjb5406]

There are also hundreds of other teleconferencing apps available, like from Cisco Systems. Heck, you can even teleconference with Wii Chat now! Let 'em get a Wii!