Commercial Flights Becoming The New “Flying Office” For CEOs

In todays Wall Street Journal, reporter Joann S. Lublin provides us with a piece titled Claiborne’s CEO Crams Into Coach to Cut Costs. Seems quite appropriate for a blog titled InFlighHQ. Lublin describes how in these times of financial distress, more and more CEOs are flying coach.

Twenty-eight U.S. companies, from Altria Group Inc. to Universal Corp., divulged their sale or planned disposal of corporate aircraft in the past two years, says Equilar Inc., which tracks executive compensation and benefits. Several others, including Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Citigroup Inc., say they are seeking buyers for company planes.

Company aircraft are a flying office and “a day extender for me,” says James E. Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy Corp., a Charlotte, N.C., utility that owns two jets and a helicopter. After flying to White Plains, N.Y., for a business dinner this month, “I got back on the [Duke] plane and I was home by 10:30 p.m.,” Mr. Rogers recalls.

But public anger and tough times mean more CEOs may soon be joining Mr. McComb on commercial flights. The heads of the Big Three car makers provoked a firestorm of criticism from lawmakers by traveling to Washington on private jets in November to plead for federal help.