After the tremendous amount of negative attention General Motors – not to mention Ford Motor Company and Chrysler LLC – received last week over the way it uses its corporate jets, the automaker has asked the Federal Aviation Administration to prevent the public from tracking its planes.
“We availed ourselves of the same option as others have,” to have the plane removed from the FAA’s tracking service, a GM spokesman, Greg Martin, told Reutersyesterday. Requests to be removed from the tracking service are apparently fairly common.
GM’s CEO, Rick Wagoner, traveled to Washington, D.C., last week to testify over the automaker’s need for low-interest federal funds. Like the CEOs from Chrysler and Ford , Wagoner traveled via one of his company’s private jets, rather than on a commercial airliner.
Representative Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat, mocked all three automakers when he asked, “Couldn’t you have downgraded to first class or something, or jet-pooled?”
GM and Ford have already announced plans to reduce their jet fleets.
