Ford mulls corporate jet sale (they have 5)

[MidwestTransplant]

Source: AP via CNN

DETROIT (AP) -- Ford Motor Co. may sell its fleet of five corporate jets after top executives of the three Detroit automakers were harshly criticized by members of Congress this week for their travel expenses.

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/21/news/companies/bc.ford.corporatejets.ap/index.htm?cnn=yes&eref=edition_business

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Maybe Palin can sell them on Ebay for them. Oh yeah, she lied about that. You betcha ;)

[Donnachaidh]

1. yeah, they'll sell the jets

But arrive at the next meetings in Rolls Royces.... :eyes:

[bluestateguy]

2. Who the hell is going to buy a corporate jet nowadays?

nt

[aviationpm]

3. An oil rich nation =) n/t

[fujiyama]

11. I think even they're having trouble

No one is buying their oil at the moment!

[delete_bush]

8. Ya never know until you put in on the internets

Like Darth Cheney said, the economy doesn't measure the hundreds of thousands of Mercans who make a living from ebay.

Why not include the auto makers in the mix!

[EC]

4. Is there anyone that will buy them?

The ones that can, already have theirs I'll bet. So who's left to buy their jets?

[madrchsod]

5. great... lose money on the sale of their jets...

cheaper to mothball two or 3 of them and keep two in flying condition. the corporate jet thing was absolute bullshit but a lot of people bought it.

[Critters2]

6. Yep. Complete BS. These guys employ American workers who

actually produce something. They deserve at least as much respect as the dildos who created the financial mess (and got $700B).

[Frisbee]

12. The difference is...

They employ blue collar workers and the financial industry employs white collar workers. The repukes and the * admin in particular do not consider all workers equal. They won't be happy until they can drive a stake though the heart of the UAW.

[ingac70]

21. One flight cost over 20k. n/t

[Demeter]

7. Why 5?

Considering the state Ford has been declining into over the past 20 years, one should have been sufficient=two if reliability was an issue.

Considering the quality of air service in the US, the cost of ownership, and the tenor of the times, five jets is ridiculous.

[bdab1973]

28. Try paying for hundreds of employees traveling via commercial air

It's not cheap. At some point, if your organization does enough traveling, owning an airplane is cheaper or just as cost effective, plus having your own aircraft opens up just about any airport it can land in. I flew in the corporate world for 3 years...it's not just a bunch of glitzy and rich people flying around by themselves in a $30 million dollar jet. Often those aircraft are full of management types, upper-, mid- and even low-level management attending meetings, sales and other business functions. If they flew commercial, they would be limited to the several dozen airports that have airline service, or rent a car to drive the rest of the way...try doing that with 6, 7 or more people...it would take the whole day and then require hotel rooms, further increasing the cost. And it would take all those people out of the office for two or more days, plus subject them to airline cancellations, etc.

Think about it...the airlines are flying a plane full of people for profit. The corporate jets are flying planes full of people at cost. If you do the math, companies that engage in lots of travel can actually save money with a corporate jet, or at least break even plus have added flexibility. Also, many corporations will often charter their jets to other customers when it's not being used by the company...this is fairly common.

[ixion]

9. proving that they still don't get it

so the jets become a buzz item that provokes a knee-jerk reaction from the swine who seek billions to shore up the companies they've personally driven into the ground.

It's not about the jets. It's about the fact that their greed and incompetence drove a once strong company into the tank. The should be cost cutting across the executive level, and folks losing their jobs. There should be talk of reorganizing and producing quality products once again. There should be talk of jobs.

There is none of this, though. There is only talk of handouts and putting the jets on ebay, now that they've become a hot potato.

:wtf;

[Algorem]

10. sell the executives.somali pirates need cabin boys.

Q: How many corporate jets does it take to ruin a car company?

A: 5,as long as they're full of incompetent bozos.

Knock-knock.Who's there?5 corporate jets.5 corporate jets who?5 corporate jets full of incompetent bozos who ruined a car company.

Corporate jet. The clown car of the skies. Honk honk!

[Honeycombe8]

13. Good. If they sell all 5 jets, won't they get lots of $$$ they need, instead of from me?

If someone goes broke and goes begging for money, before they get to that point of begging, they need to sell their luxury items to get the money for that first. It's common sense.

That's why if someone wants to get healthcare through Medicaid, they can't have a new Cadillac and a $200,000 house. A person OR a company needs to "get it" first, by recognizing they are in dire straits, and selling off the luxury items.

Ford seems to be (finally) getting it. If they're going belly up, they can't afford luxury items like private jets. They can not only not afford to have them, they can't afford to operate them!

They will get many millions (billions?) from the sale of those jets. And if they can't sell all of them, they will save millions of dollars by retiring them and not using them. Think about it...all the fuel that those things use, plus a private crew has to be hired and maintained, plus the maintenance costs.

They need to get lean in lean times. No more luxury items like that. Now, if AIG would only "get it."

[zogtheobvious]

14. Nah, they don't "get it."

Somebody in this thread used a phrase I like: political hot potato. That's all it is. They'll sell them, it'll splash all over the media, and meanwhile behind the scenes, they'll go through a series of legal contortions that will end with them still being able to fly around in luxury on private jets. By the time news hits the mainstream that they've done this, the flap will be past, they'll have their money, and the American people will have no recourse but to mutter, "Typical."

[jmowreader]

15. Used properly, a corporate jet is a good tool

Executives' time is valuable, and if an executive HAS to travel somewhere, were I a stockholder I would prefer he or she be transported on a corporate jet rather than waiting in line after line, which that executive would be doing if issued an airline ticket. You don't make money off your executives if they're sitting in a lounge sipping cappucino, and I wouldn't want them doing any paperwork in a place where someone not affiliated with the company might see it.

This doesn't mean I think executives should use the planes for leisure travel without reimbursing the company for the full cost of that travel. Executives in many companies--maybe not Ford, although they're almost certainly guilty of it too--have seen free private jet service as a perquisite of their positions for a long time, and that needs to end.

With the incredible state of communication technology available to American industry today, it's becoming rare that an executive HAVE to fly anywhere. Teleconferencing, which they're almost certainly set up for, would cut Ford's travel expenses far more than selling the planes and putting the executives on Southwest or something.

In the current state of the economy, jet sales are a bit slow right now...so what I'd do, were I in charge, is reserve two planes for Ford executives' use and enter the other three into Part 135 air charter service.

[w4rma]

24. If executives were paid so much to run their companies into the ground, their time wouldn't be so

"valuable".

[bdab1973]

27. It's not that at all...

Most medium and large corporations have corporate aircraft. They have them because it makes business sense to operate them. It's not just CEOs that travel on these aircraft, they are also used as "corporate shuttles", ferrying mid-level and sometimes lower-level management to meetings and appointments. Once you look at the scale of travel that most corporations engage in, it actually makes more sense to OWN an aircraft than to pay for airline tickets. Not only is it cheaper in the long run, but it's also much more flexible, allowing you to fly to locations that often aren't served by airlines, or fly into airports that are closer to a meeting site than a commercial air carrier will get you.

Often times if corporations rely soley on airlines, not only do they wind up paying more (essentially you're paying an airline to carry you for a profit...it makes sense if you're traveling in small numbers, but you wind up forking over lots of cash to airlines if you perform a lot of travel), but they also wind up having to fly into an airport, rent a car and drive the rest of the way.

Often corporate aviation is looked at through the stereotypical lens of celebrities and other famous people that really don't need a jet for their own personal transportation, but larger (and even smaller) corporations do well if they have an airplane they can use. I flew Learjets for three years (for the military) and I was around corporate aviation quite a bit, and I was surprised to often see an airplane pull up at the airport and unload about a dozen mid-level management types to go hammer out a business deal...and we were often at small airports where the nearest airline destination was several hours away by car. It would have probably cost thousands to buy tickets to some podunk airline destination, then rent several vehicles for the day, and since it would take so long, then you're talking about hotels, per diem, etc. All in all, had those folks flown on an airline, it would have cost more and would have taken more time (less productivity) and hassle. Instead they arrived at BFE airport in a couple hours after showing up for work, prepared and ready to do their meeting, then return home that afternoon, and the airplane's cost of fuel and operating expenses would be around the same or less than the cost of commercial travel arrangements.

I agree that many large corporations are NOT being managed well, and are being sold down the river by greedy execs. But operating a business jet or two isn't going to be the thing that kills a corporation. Most of these companies are BILLIONS in the red, and a typical biz jet costs a few million and takes a few million more a year to operate. Compare that with buying airline tickets, car rental and other travel arrangements for hundreds of employees each month, and the costs are fairly equal, minus the flexibility a biz jet gives you. But my point is, mentioning these jets is just grand-standing on the part of Congress, who often fly in military and civilian chartered aircraft ALL THE TIME (and last I checked, our country is TRILLIONS in the red). The jets really are just a tiny drop in the ocean, and it doesn't really matter if Ford sells it's biz jet fleet, it won't suddenly make them profitable. If anything, it'll be a loss, because they'll lose value on the jets, and they will still have to finance travel for their personnel to attend business meetings and deals, visit production facilities and other things that have to be accomplished.

[jakefrep]

29. Exactly

Try booking a commercial flight to Defiance, Ohio sometime and see how far you get.

[madmom]

16. No what's really going to happen is they'll sell off a couple jets, then go back to

the unions and say see we've down-sized now it's your turn, even though the unions have been doing just that for years.

[Phred42]

17. Turn over all auto companies to the Employees.

[WoodyM]

18. How many corporate jets

have been put for sale by financial institutions that have received a much larger bailout than the auto companies are asking for? Are their executives now flying commercial?

[goforit]

19. Decadence at a cost....Oh well.

[ingac70]

20. If they sell them, they need to...

put the money in retiree pensions. Fuckers.

[Danmel]

22. Maybe Sarah Palin can sell them on EBAY for them

Oh right...........Never Mind

[cliss]

23. A corporate spokesman told the press

why the CEO's took the plane to Washington.

"They are required to fly in the private jet".

Well, why?? asked the reporter

Answer = they need a lot of security, because they are targets for hostility.

Well, there's the Einstein comment of the day.
Stupid clowns, QUIT ACTING like Marie Antionette and you'll be safer:smoke:

[tabbycat31]

25. before this week

did anyone even know what the big 3 CEO's LOOKED LIKE.

Seriously, they're not Hollywood celebrities here.

[No Elephants]

26. It's not only the cost. These are huge aircraft. Think of th damage to the environment to get one

jerk per jet to Washington. Couldn't they at least have met at the airport and gone in one plane? And Pubs say the poor have a sense of entitlement?