Business Jet Travel: A Line in the Sand

Remember the old days, back when people had little respect for business airplanes simply because they knew next to nothing about them? Those were the good old days until the guys from the motor companies jumped on their airplanes in Detroit to head for Washington to beg for cash. That was a PR blunder for sure.

In case you missed the whole debacle, here are a few mile markers for a quick review. Thanks to my pals at Business Jet Traveler magazine who allowed me to inject my two cents into the whole conversation. And another round of thanks to Bill Hemmer at Fox News who gave me some time – albeit a bit tongue in cheek – to debate the very idea of owning a business airplane. My stance essentially said companies that use business airplanes as legitimate tools of the trade have been hiding those machines in the weeds so long they’ve become their own worst enemies.

While the auto industry execs trip may have evolved into a colossal PR blunder, not to mention great fodder for some of the TV networks, using those business airplanes for the trip to Washington that day was not a bad business move. Mr. Mulally, Nardelli and Wagoner used their airplanes for precisely the purpose they purchased them in the first place, swift efficient transportation for people being paid enough money to warrant the expense.

This past few weeks has seen even more logs on the fire with the feeding frenzy surrounding the CitiGroup delivery of a Dassault Falcon 7X or Starbuck’s delivery of their Gulfstream 550 as the company cuts their workforce. As I said to Bill Hemmer during our interview … if the media was hounding the execs from Detroit about what kind of computers they used or how much they cost, those execs would have told them to take a long walk off a short plank. So where are the corporate communications people? Why aren’t they out there telling the story in an attempt to balance off the negative publicity?

Because President Obama entering the discussion as he tries to crack down on the idiots in the finance industry who have given themselves huge bonuses even as they accepted TARP funds has driven the airplane users even further underground just as they need to be climbing closer to the light of day. Surely if the bankers used TARP money to buy their airplanes, people should be upset. But we don’t know that happened. It just looks like it could have.

“We have seen the enemy and it is us,” Pogo  

Those trips to DC for the motor executives and other aircraft purchases now look like a walk in the park unfortunately, because as I write this, people in almost every industry have not simply panicked … they’ve begun to stampede. People are running around acting as if the end of life as we know it is here, a sort of 21st Century equivalent of jumping out of windows the way they did in 1929 and for exactly the same reason. People seem to think that losing money in the stock market means life as we know it IS over.

Me, I’m embarrassed at the lack of fight I’ve seen in business aviation operators. Just when we need people to pull together, people are jumping ship, selling airplanes and canceling orders, all out of fear of what might be. Thousands seem to be waiting for NBAA to fight this battle for them on the Hill while they hide their airplanes away in the hangar.

It’s simply not going to happen folks. If we stand by and allow Congress to dictate business terms that remove a valuable business tool from our arsenal, we deserve what happens next. More airplanes will fall idle and more orders will be canceled out of some unnamed fear. What if business becomes worse? some wonder, or what if more media jump on the CitiGroup and Starbucks of the world and ask why we own these darned flying machines?

This is it folks. No one else is going to do it for us.

As much as I love the guys at NBAA, they don’t have the lobbying power to fix this one alone. Ed Bolen said Wednesday, ” While NBAA’s work to advocate for the industry will continue, your direct involvement in our efforts is as critical as ever. Your voice is needed to remind policymakers in Washington that business aviation generates jobs, economic activity and local investment in every state and congressional district in the country. We need policymakers to advance proposals that allow companies in business aviation to survive and keep people working.” Ed is being nice. I don’t need to be.

If we all stand by cowering as if we’ve done something wrong by owning and using a business airplane, we’ll create precisely the kind of chaos we’re all hoping to avoid. We’ll look as if all the things being said in the media, like that insane New York Post article on Monday are true.

They’re not … are they?