No problem with them using jets, but unreasonably?

This issue has been blown up in the first place, anyways. Just an example of how executives are blind to their own irony.

I find it rather hilarious how those making the most money in the US seem to be the most dense.

And once their off the FAA radar it’ll be back to business as usual. Proves Wagoner will do or say anything to preserve that lifestyle at the expense of anyone (GM buyer) and soon everyone (US taxpayer). It’s tail number N5116 and it’s guaranteed someone will build a website which tracks it anyway.

I don’t know why they’re bothering the FAA. The already know how to make profits disappear.

Videoconferencing, anyone?

Ackerman is just jealous that he doesn’t have a private jet.

The Feds are more deep in the red than GM. Why isn’t Air Force One on the chopping block?

Quick Question: Isn’t GM a publicly traded company? If so, isn’t this kind of illegal… or immoral?

Hey Greg Martin heres an idea not to be tracked……. dont use the jet. Asshole!!!!!!!!

Have any of you actually taken a business trip via airplane? This is what it looks like for us commoners from the time we reach the airport:

T+0 -> Arrive at checkin
T+15 -> A guy with a bad attitude is searching your bag and rearranging your undies.
T+30 -> You get shuttled off to another line where a guy with a bad attitude is searching you and rearranging your undies.
T+35 -> You sit down in at the gate (but only if you’re at least 30 minutes ahead of schedule).
T+60 -> The flight arrives late from Baltimore
T+75 -> You’re in your seat. Hooray.
T+90 -> You’re still in your seat. The plane hasn’t moved.
T+105-> You’re still in your seat. The plane has moved, to the end of the line to get off the ground.
T+120-> Hooray! You’re at 10,000 feet and can turn on your iPod without being thrown out an escape hatch.
T+145-> The stewardess trips and spills someone’s bloody mary on your lap. Add 30 minutes when you get to your destination to change clothes.
T+330-> Hooray, you’ve started your approach to Reagan.
T+345-> You’re not sure exactly when, but approach will end “soon”.
T+400-> Hooray, you’re on the ground.
T+415-> Hooray, you’re at the gate.
T+430-> Hooray, you’re made it to the baggage claim just in time to discover they’ve moved it, to across the airport.
T-445-> Hooray, you’ve got your bags!

445 minutes, also known as over 7 hours. Basically, a whole working day shot on our wonderful airline system.

MATH TIME!

Assuming a CEO makes $10M a year, his daily salary is approximately $37,878. Now, this trip has to be repeated to go home. You now have a bill of over $70,000 to fly that CEO via “First Class”. $30,000 for a round trip from Detroit to DC doesn’t seem so silly. And before you complain about the time in the air, remember that on a private jet you can actually do the work of a CEO. You’re not going to discuss the Chrysler merger or prepare for a congressional appearance by rehearsing in First Class.

But I know, why should I bring facts into this emotional situation? I mean, doesn’t every CEO know that he’s over paid, you could do his job with a High School Diploma and a few fortune cookies and that his very existence is a blight on the ass of mother earth?

My question is how many private jets do AIG and Citibank have?

PS. There’s an easy way to calculate how long a flight will actually take out of your day:

TTFWTFYD = LOF + (4h * IOF)

Key:
TTFWTFYD – Total Time Flight Will Take From Your Day
LOF – Length of Flight
IOF – Importance of flight

IOF is the really important variable here. It’s a sliding scale from 0.75 to infinity with 0.75 meaning it’s a meaningless flight and you have nothing better to do with your life.

Payton nailed it, guys.

And although I constantly question the wisdom of any massive corporate management, it’s not as easy as just saying “build cars people want” like so many fools say here. Of course building cars that no one wants doesnt help (AKA Aztek), but people actually do want most GMs and Fords. The problem is to build and sell them at a profit.

I picture their personal stewardess’s all getting naked with a strippers pole while Lutz etc. get hammered on Dom Perignon just like in that Iron Man movie.

When they land they then snort up on coke to appear sober at the hearings

Yes Payton, armed with only a High School diploma, and given a few government bailouts, I’m sure I could run a car manufacturer into the ground over the course of several decades. Why, I bet I could do it even faster! Here’s an idea, dual climate control really gives the shaft to the people in the back seat. Lets get working on quad climate control!

John Shepard Reed the former CEO of Citibank has divorced his wife of 30 years and married stewardess. The common joke at the bank was: on the landing approach captain announces “please place stewardess in upright position we are reaching our destination”.

Look, people can defend these actions all they want, but in this dire financial crisis, whining about how the CEO’s really don’t have a choice, that they need these private jets for business matters, is bull****. They don’t need to “rehearse” on the ****ing plane, they should have their **** together to begin with, it’s the BIGGEST THREAT THE DOMESTIC AUTO INDUSTRY HAS EVER SEEN, if you are needing to rehearse on the way, and that is the only way you are going to be able to effectively give your proposal to congress, then you’re ****ed already.

**** GM, **** those jets, start taking responsibility for your actions and the past 2 decades of weak products.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has ask the FAA the same thing, for his privet jet, it was once revealed that he fly’s every day form Sacramento to Los Angeles, at his own expense and this is when gas was at $4.75 out here…

Payton you sound like you rode shotgun with those CEOs on the way to DC, no wonder they didn’t have a plan B! You guys were too busy doing the math for First Class vs. Private Jets rather than putting together a plan for Big 3’s problems. You know if the company was really serious about jets they should’ve built one like Honda. At least in that case they could’ve made up an excuse that they were testing their product.

In any case, speaking of JETS, how about them NY JETS!!

‘Payton’, you’re an idiot … seriously.

These CEOs, rather … TURDS, don’t deserve the money they make, so your math is fundamentally flawed. They are overpaid FAILURES.

Second, if you think ANYTHING productive happened on that plane ride, you may as well kill yourself as you are a write-off.

Wrong,Implusive. The union leaders are overpaid failures, as well as many of the UAW slob workers. I mean really, does someone with only a high school diploma, turning screws on an assembly line deserve to make $70/ hour with full benefits better than 95% of corporate America gets?

Executives like Wagoner, Mulally, and Maximum Bob have done a great job trying to turn around the monumental messes they were left with from prior management teams. I can guarantee you couldn’t do any better.

If you take the first flight out of airport at 6 A.M. there is little air traffic or any other traffic for that matter. Everyone who spend few days in consultancy knows the drill. Of course if you need your beauty sleep, things get touchy. Real man don’t make air travel excuses.

@Borat

Exactly how do you suppose this 6am theory works for unscheduled activities of large groups? Remember, when these guys fly to DC, they aren’t traveling alone.

Not to sound like a prick but alot of you seem to think it cost 30k to make one round trip in a private Jet, when in actuality it is significantly less. I have had the privilege of flying on private jets a few times via some wealthy friends of the family and was told that the fuel costs (mind you this was before gasoline was $4/gallon) for a trip we took to Florida was around $8000 grand round trip for an 8 passenger jet. Now even though GM’s corporate jet is more than likely larger, a flight from Detroit to DC is about 1.5 hrs by private jet, and with a big jet it probably costs around 6-7k per hour to operate so your looking at 9-10.5k round trip + plus airport fees (hardly worth calculating into operating cost). Given the fact that your are saving more than a days worth of travel time, between check-in, loading, waiting…waiting….waiting…..unload, baggage…..oh nevermind got sent to the wrong terminal….baggage, hotel, sleep because you wasted a whole day at the airport, then finally get to your meeting…..the next day, it is essential to have a private when you are talking big business and potentially millions at stake. Now I agree that personal use of a corporate jet is a frivolous expense, and IMO should have not been allowed under any situation, or it comes out of the persons salary. Execs flying family across the country several times per month is a complete waste of company assets and should be monitored and only essential use of company jets should be allowed if the gov’t steps in to bail the big 3 out.

‘Z06ified’, YOU are wrong … the subject of the other failures wasn’t the discussion. I don’t deny others are also to blame but on subject, Payton is an idiot.

And I can guarantee I COULD do better … shows what you know … as much as ‘Payton’ evidently. Good on ya.

The FAA is a public entity paid for by the US Taxpayer. If GM and others do not wish to be tracked then they should not fly. I do not even want to get into the abuses of our airports and the freebies that airlines and private aircraft get away with—again, all at US Taxpayers’ expense.

Se how much it costs Nacy Pelosi to be “flown” weekly in our “Taxpayer’s Airways” jet she has use of.

so…if they ran into an accident, no one could know if they are alived?

on the other hand, I think we all need to write to the congress that ban on private jet using the publicly funded facilities. GM…you are going to far…and it’s outrages!!!

No need for jets to Washington,
Stop the showboat inquisition, sign the cheque, direct deposit it, and enjoy your holidays of giving.

btw, Does Gary Ackerman take public transportation to work? Does he car pool his limo with fellow Democrats for sessions?

Is Gary Ackerman selling inferior cars and asking for 25 millions dollars with no plan with what to do with the money ???
They should ground the planes and drive their asses to Washington Either way they shouldnt get the money

Ok, I just have to chime in for real now. I’ve worked for a corporate flight department for almost the last quarter century. Payton is absolutely right about the time savings. In fact I’ve even constructed a program that tracks exactly how much of our executive’s time is saved by flying on our corporate aircraft. On average per passenger per leg over the last 4 years it works out to be 2.6 hours, and believe me that’s being awfully generous to the commercial carriers assuming on time performance. Now factor in the following:
-corporate aircraft aren’t limited to the major airports, there are thousands of fields we can use that can get our passengers much closer to where they are actually going and, consequently, depending on the range of the aircraft there is no need to connect or stop for fuel
-privacy, obviously, is not an issue and thanks to satellite phone and increasingly available broadband technology the phrase ‘office in the sky’ is not a misnomer
-and most importantly, corporate aircraft always depart on time because the flight doesn’t leave until the passenger(s) show up

Do corporate aircraft cost a lot to operate? Of course they do. Besides gas and oil (and the initial purchase cost of the aircraft) here are just a few of the fixed and variable costs:
-salaries and recurrent training for pilots, engineers and dispatch
-parts inventory
-hangar costs both home and abroad
-maintenance programs (which increase proportionally based on the age of the aircraft)
-landing fees, navigation fees (Canada and Europe), ramp fees, customs fees, handling fees (Europe and outside North America)
-ground transportation, catering (you can eat at 5 star restaurants cheaper than what the average caterer charges for a cheese tray), aircraft grooming and ground servicing
-depreciation (and although the value of a particular model can fluctuate millions of dollars over a short period based on demand and availability you can sometimes get more than you paid initially even years later)

Are corporate aircraft worth it? Yes, and that may be biased because I know what they can do that no commercial carrier can. Have many of those who depend on corporate aircraft lost touch with reality? Maybe, but just remember that for every Boeing or Airbus bound to some vacation destination or business hub the corporate jet on the other side of the runway waiting for takeoff clearance with even just one person on board may be responsible for the livelihood of tenfold or more the number of passengers on the cattle car. Corporate aviation in its modern interpretation has been with us for more than a half century and it’s not going anywhere. It’s just another a business tool, nothing more and nothing less.

Now, does all this make what the big 2.5 execs did the other week in Washington any less ridiculous? Not a chance. Optics are everything, and no matter what the aircraft instruments might have said these guys were flying with zero visibility when it came to the big picture.

I’ll put it like this
The chances of the execs actually driving all the way from Ann Arbor or wherever to the Capitol are pretty f’n small!
I expect a much shorter Volt trip
DrFill

@Mutant@DCX

AMEN!

@Payton, and everyone else that feels that the use of the corporate jets was a wise decision:

I understand the costs, the technicalities, the purpose, and all that. However, the impression these guys made could have been worth billions in financing and assistance. No salary is worth what they may have already lost. The statements I heard from The Media was that the “CEOs of the Big 3 arrived in Washington in their private jets holding their hands out for money”. That’s the impression they made, and the message that is being conveyed. Now they are going for a second chance, but they really blew the first one in the minds of many. It will be harder to convince Congress the second time. It will be more difficult to appease The Media and put The Media on the side of the Big 3. And, this shortsightedness could possibly have a negative effect on sales figures. Just one time they could have flown on public transportation, or flown together on the same plane, and the one time that could have made a difference, they failed. And in that regard, I agree 100% with JohnnyCanuck.

Besides all that wonderful calculations Payton put out, don’t we all learn to work while we travel through the airports, with Blackberry, laptop, wifi, etc? I highly doubt Wagner really is wasting thousands of dallors by the minutes. If so, he needs to be fired. Millions of us airport warriors do it every week. With today’s information technology, there is no excuse to blame long air travel on the lack of productivity, especially on a CEO when he is paid so much.

“remember that on a private jet you can actually do the work of a CEO. You’re not going to discuss the Chrysler merger or prepare for a congressional appearance by rehearsing in First Class”

That’s laughable! If you are only rehearsing an hour before landing, then no wonder the Big 3 are in the shape they are in. And would you be thinking about the Chrysler merger when you are on your way for a hand-me-down because your company has been in the red for quite some time and you are doing all your can to avoid bankruptcy? With all that said, I am sure Wagoner can find projects that don’t require a microphone or a stage to work on. No excuse there.

Payton clearly demonstrates the stark and disparate salaries between upper-execs and the others. So great that many astute business professionals from decades past have always said that this is one of the biggest problems in American corporations. Do Wagoner, Lutz, and Mulally really deserve to be paid such outlandish sums and perks? Does anyone genuinely believe that one person can actually run a company? If they do, I have some sub-prime loans I’d love to sell you, and I will personally direct you to the Washington DC bail out line.

The jets are worth it. Suck it up, become a CEO and get your own. Then you will stop bitching about useless talking points.

One point which seems to have been missed in all these comments is that all three CEOs went from Detroit (perhaps even the same airport) to DC (ditto) in time for the same meeting. In fact, they even would benefit from some time together strategizing about what each should say as part of their common appeal. Yet they each flew in their own jets rather than sharing one. That is where the real waste is, and what Ackerman meant by jet-pooling. When you look at that, and the symbolism of each taking their own plane rather than cooperating to save costs, all the counter-arguments about saved airport time become irrelevant.

Calexand, the “plane pooling” has not been missed. There were two counter arguments to plane pooling, which were “what happens if the plane goes down and all three CEOs die?” and “CEOs can’t conduct business in the presence of CEOs from competing companies.” For the most part, I agree with both those arguments. However, in this one particular instance where these guys had the chance to show that they were doing all they could to save their companies, they chose the appearance of frivolousness.