When the chief executives of America's big three automakers flew last year in separate corporate jets from Detroit to Washington to ask the US government for a bail-out, there was widespread outrage. It prompted US congressman Gary Ackerman to ask: “Couldn't you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here? It would have at least sent a message that you do get it.”
Corporate jets have now joined bankers' bonuses as objects of unlimited opprobrium to become the worst symbols of executive excess. Since the backlash against the automakers, companies have been trying rather harder to prove they do “get it”. Last month, Citigroup, the bank, abandoned the purchase of a $50m (€40m, £36m) jet after a storm of negative publicity and Starbucks, the coffee chain, announced plans to sell its new corporate jet less than a month after it had been delivered.
In addition there are obvious environmental concerns. As Greenpeace points out, the amount of of CO2 emitted per passenger travelling by private jet compared to a commercial airliner is significantly higher.