Here’s one to warm your heart this morning, especially those of you slogging through airport terminals for a six-hour date with all the comforts of commercial air travel.
Turns out that CEO pay is not the only thing on the rise in corporate America: According to this story in the New York Times, new government data shows that more and more top execs have come to treat their corporate jets as personal playthings. Some, such as AT&T boss Ed Whitacre, even have it written into their contracts that the plane will still be at their beck and call after they’ve left the company.
“One chief executive told me, ‘You can fool around with my stock options all you want, but don’t fool around with my airplane,’ ” recalled Richard H. Moore, treasurer of the state of North Carolina, who oversees $72 billion in investments. “You can compare it to crack cocaine. Once they get used to having the plane there waiting for them, they don’t want to go back.”
Think about that next time you’re stuck in the middle seat jammed between two sumo wrestlers.
