Corporate Jets Still En Vogue Among Battered Wall Street Chiefs

After the carnage at many Wall Street investment houses over the past several months, the sub-prime lending crisis, the credit crunch, plummeting equities markets, lost 401(k)s and constant talk of government bailouts, one could be excused for mistakenly thinking that Wall Street executives would be cutting back a little. The rest of the country, after all, has been thrust into a recession the likes of which we’ve not seen for decades and everyone’s a bit skittish about finances. Of course, that’s when the "finances" in question involve one’s OWN money.

Wall Street’s top CEOs, however, prefer taking another tack. Of the financial companies that received corporate welfare in the form of government bailouts, six are still operating fleets of jets to ferry executives from one location to another, sometimes even for personal reasons. AIG, for instance, has a fleet of seven planes. Said AIG spokesperson Nicholas J. Ashoosh, "Our aircraft are being used very sparingly right now. I’m not saying there’s no use, but there’s very minimal use." Indeed.

JPMorgan, which requires its CEO Jamie Dimon to use company-owned plans for personal travel, has four Gulfstream jets, which cost as much as $47.5 million. Dimon racked up over $211,000 in flying expenses in 2007 and a company spokesperson won’t comment on any changes to the corporate aircraft policy after JPMorgan received $25 billion in TARP money. To be fair, however, there do seem to be some companies that are taking a more responsible approach to the issue. For instance, Citigroup’s CEO in 2007, Charles Prince, used his company’s planes to take trips that cost over $170,000. However, the company’s current CEO, Vikram Pandit, started to reimburse the company for all personal travel on company plans after taking over in November, 2007, a gesture worthy of respect.