The thing about companies like General Motors and Ford is that public image matters a lot. The same is true of just about any large company. Look, for example, at the way BP has handled this disaster with the oil leak in the Gulf. In many ways, it’s been one PR disaster after another. While the company is spending money to try to keep its image up, sometimes it just doesn’t work.
One of the things that companies are doing right now to help their image is to try to appear to be less opulent and excessive, in terms of how their executives get perks from the company. Many companies, including General Motors and Ford, are selling off their private charter jets to avoid the kind of public relations disaster that those executives saw during the government bailout of the auto industry.
This has led to a jump in the number of private jets that are on the market for resale. The number of private jets for resale has doubled in just a few months.
Still, those high-powered execs may still be finding ways to fly. Charter jet companies that offer the use of their jets in hourly packages have been doing very well as of late. Executives who used to fly on a company plane now simply rent one from a company like Maruqis Jet. That company has sold more than 1,000 25-hour packages, with each averaging around $150,000.
Many companies have simply traded the cost of owning their private charter jets for paying to rent private jet time. This, of course, amounts to the same thing, and is indicative that the class of executives we’re talking about here don’t have any real interest in saving the company money, at least not when it comes to their own travel.
Up to this point, the ploy seems to have worked. Because the private charter jets are off the books, the public remains largely unaware that these execs are still burning through plenty of money (and fuel) to travel.
