When asking the GOV'T for Money, don't fly your Corporate Jet!!!!!

[Rough67]

I think it's kind of strange that some NJA folks detest all that the airlines represent, really including us too, and yet the airlines are how you guys get to your tours and back home again. Other than line crossing types, aren't we just a bunch of pilots going to a different flight deck? A pilot at NJA and a pilot at AMR are pretty much the same.. I mean you do your job well and go home. You really don't have much to do with what managment does with the company day to day, or how sucessful the company is over a long period of time.. .. now back to Sportscenter..

 

[OPECJet]

I think it's kind of strange that some NJA folks detest all that the airlines represent, really including us too, and yet the airlines are how you guys get to your tours and back home again. Other than line crossing types, aren't we just a bunch of pilots going to a different flight deck? A pilot at NJA and a pilot at AMR are pretty much the same.. I mean you do your job well and go home. You really don't have much to do with what managment does with the company day to day, or how sucessful the company is over a long period of time.. .. now back to Sportscenter..

That's the way I see it. Same job, same title, etc. Only difference is the size of the equipment and where we park when we get to the airport.

Many on both sides of the fence will try to lead you to believe otherwise.

 

[brokeflyer]

That's the way I see it. Same job, same title, etc. Only difference is the size of the equipment and where we park when we get to the airport.

Many on both sides of the fence will try to lead you to believe otherwise.

yeah i agree. Every company has a few that make the rest look bad. NJ pilots aint all like that.




but nja pilots are better.....



j/k

 

[NJAowner]

No Fly Lists

Originally Posted by X-rated
That's absolute crap. At my company, and I assume all fractionals, every single passenger's ID is checked by the crew against the manifest and no fly list. The flight cannot be released until the no fly list has been run for every passenger. If that means taking a 5 min delay while dispatch runs the names through the computer, so be it.

Not true -- when I fly under 91K, while I may give the operator the names for the manifest, and you may check them, only the lead passenger shows ID. I can put Donald Duck and Abraham Lincoln on my manifest and actually fly someone on the no-fly list and they would be on board. It is different under 135 when all adult pawssengers need to show ID.


On the original note of this thread, even though the firms were not looking for bailouts this time, it wasn't too long ago when they were. I will not argue the merits and usefullness of corporate aviation (becuase I am in favor of it),; however, it is only useful and cost effective WHEN YOU CAN AFFORD to travel that way, and when you company is losing billions you owe a duty to your shareholders (and those who bailed you out) to spend money wisely.

 

[gutshotdraw]

I think it's kind of strange that some NJA folks detest all that the airlines represent, really including us too, and yet the airlines are how you guys get to your tours and back home again. Other than line crossing types, aren't we just a bunch of pilots going to a different flight deck? A pilot at NJA and a pilot at AMR are pretty much the same.. I mean you do your job well and go home. You really don't have much to do with what managment does with the company day to day, or how sucessful the company is over a long period of time.. .. now back to Sportscenter..

Actually, I drove 4 and a half hours to my airplane this week. And I drove 4 hours and 15 minutes home from my airplane last tour. ANYTHING within reason to avoid the Thousands Standing Around and the General Lee's of this industry. Airlining is the WORST part of our job. And I'm married to an airline pilot. Regrettably at the same airline as Corporal Toolbag.

 

[jonjuan]

I will not argue the merits and usefullness of corporate aviation (becuase I am in favor of it),; however, it is only useful and cost effective WHEN YOU CAN AFFORD to travel that way, and when you company is losing billions you owe a duty to your shareholders (and those who bailed you out) to spend money wisely.

So to your point, do you really believe the President of the U.S. should travel via commercial airlines (after all, the U.S.A. corp ain't maiking money.) What about the CEO of NJA (which lost millions) and soon to be CEO of Berkshire Hathaway? Should he really be flying via commercial airlines?
As a shareholder of a public company that lost money in 2009, I still want the CEO and senior management flying privately as it's the most effective use of their time and I know they are much more productive doing so.

 

[cldsfr79]

Does anyone remember when the banking CEOs went to see the president several months ago. About half of them used airlines so they look humble and the other half took their private jets. The day they were supposed to meet, there were bad storms in the DC area. Guess who made this important meeting? Give up? The CEOs who took their jets. The rest of the tools who tired to airline in had to do a conference call from a corner space in the terminal. I'm glad their productivity was maximized.

In regards to the president flying commercially. When Tony Blaire was the prime minister of England he would routinely fly on EasyJet when he went on vacation with his family. I think it is completely hypocritical of Obama and his government, whom attack private jets, yet uses their own at tax payer expense. Obama should fly commercially and then he can see how valuable corporate jets are. Does he not remember chartering a jet during his campaign? He would not have been able to do a 1/4 of his campaigning if he had to airline around. He may not be president right now without private jets Get a clue government!

 

[doh]

Originally Posted by X-rated
That's absolute crap. At my company, and I assume all fractionals, every single passenger's ID is checked by the crew against the manifest and no fly list. The flight cannot be released until the no fly list has been run for every passenger. If that means taking a 5 min delay while dispatch runs the names through the computer, so be it.

Not true -- when I fly under 91K, while I may give the operator the names for the manifest, and you may check them, only the lead passenger shows ID. I can put Donald Duck and Abraham Lincoln on my manifest and actually fly someone on the no-fly list and they would be on board. It is different under 135 when all adult pawssengers need to show ID.


On the original note of this thread, even though the firms were not looking for bailouts this time, it wasn't too long ago when they were. I will not argue the merits and usefullness of corporate aviation (becuase I am in favor of it),; however, it is only useful and cost effective WHEN YOU CAN AFFORD to travel that way, and when you company is losing billions you owe a duty to your shareholders (and those who bailed you out) to spend money wisely.

Wouldn't it be great if government acted that way too!

 

[X-rated]

Originally Posted by X-rated
That's absolute crap. At my company, and I assume all fractionals, every single passenger's ID is checked by the crew against the manifest and no fly list. The flight cannot be released until the no fly list has been run for every passenger. If that means taking a 5 min delay while dispatch runs the names through the computer, so be it.

Not true -- when I fly under 91K, while I may give the operator the names for the manifest, and you may check them, only the lead passenger shows ID. I can put Donald Duck and Abraham Lincoln on my manifest and actually fly someone on the no-fly list and they would be on board. It is different under 135 when all adult pawssengers need to show ID.


On the original note of this thread, even though the firms were not looking for bailouts this time, it wasn't too long ago when they were. I will not argue the merits and usefullness of corporate aviation (becuase I am in favor of it),; however, it is only useful and cost effective WHEN YOU CAN AFFORD to travel that way, and when you company is losing billions you owe a duty to your shareholders (and those who bailed you out) to spend money wisely.

Hello NJAowner,

I'll stand corrected as to how other operators handle their security procedures. You would know better than I.

As for a major company losing billions, and thereby owing a duty to the shareholders to ride the airlines, I think you are way off base. Their duty to the stockholders is to right the ship, and during these difficult times it is even more critical for CEO's to work harder and smarter. Business Jets are powerful business tools which provide a secure and efficient mode of transportation, but more importantly, they allow executives to continue working.

As an owner you have great insight from the customers perspective, but you don't see how other executives utilize these planes. I do. The huge majority of corporate customers work from the time step onboard until they deplane. I might understand your point if these execs were going to Aspen for the weekend or St Martin for a family vacation, but that was not the case with the Bank Execs, nor the Big Three bosses who went to Washington. These people are high profile, and security is a serious consideration for many of them. Do you really think it would have been wise for the Big Three CEO's to airline in and out of DTW with the news media reporting every step of their itinerary to every nutjob in Michigan? Do you think they didn't have anything more important to occupy their time than dealing with airport lines and a unsecured flight which would make working impossible?

I rarely disagree with your posts, but I think you missed this one big time.

X

 

[NJAowner]

The following appeared in the Wall Street Journal this week. I realize that the people spoken about may be the ones you fly. I do not have time to respond to X-Rated, but will in a few days.


Obama and the 'Fat Cat Bankers'
Surprise! Banks with government guarantees take the biggest risks, make the most money, and pay the highest bonuses.


President Obama said last month on "60 Minutes" that he "did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street." This assertion may mollify his constituents, but it is not consistent with his administration's own policies.

We are on the cusp of what is going to be the most highly visible and contentious bank bonus season in history. Bonuses are predicted to run into the billions of dollars, and many of the banks that got the most bailout money are paying the biggest bonuses. The two issues are intimately related—and as long as the administration continues down its too-big-to-fail regulatory path, Mr. Obama will stay in the business of paying huge bonuses to fat cat bankers. Here's how it works.

All of the banks in which the bonus-driven employees work have highly leveraged balance sheets. This leverage greatly magnifies bank profits in good times and causes their losses to mushroom in bad times. The public shareholders of these companies tend to be highly diversified against the risk of failure at any particular financial institution, so they have a strong personal interest in seeing the bankers who manage their leveraged investments swing for the fences.

On the other hand, these institutions are considered vital to the national interest, and therefore can't be allowed to fail because they are allegedly too big or too interconnected. So the managers of these banks are assured that the government will bail them out if they falter.

The bankers, in short, face a massive conflict. They have a great responsibility to the public which arose as soon as the politicians decided to guarantee the survival of their businesses. They also have a legal responsibility to their owner-shareholders, whose diversified investments in these highly levered companies makes them eager to take on as much risk as they possibly can.

It isn't hard to figure out how the bankers are likely to act in the face of this conflict between the government's interest in avoiding future bailouts and the shareholder's interest in the rewards associated with significant risk-taking. They will follow their paychecks.

These paychecks are highly rational from the shareholders' perspective. The basic pay structure is the same at all of these banks. The bankers make relatively modest base salaries and receive most of their compensation in the form of bonuses. The average bonuses will be around $500,000—$595,000 at Goldman Sachs, $463,000 at JP Morgan Chase—but some will make far more (as much as eight figures). These bonuses are big and they are unremittingly linked to performance.Together a mere five banks—Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, all of which got billions of bailout dollars—have allocated about $90 billion for overall compensation, with bonuses comprising more than half.

What Mr. Obama and others apparently fail to understand is that the banks' own shareholders benefit from these huge performance bonuses. The bonuses are paid to those who make large profits for their employers—that is, they are linked to performance.

In our "heads the shareholders and bankers win, tails the U.S. taxpayers lose" world, neither the public's supplicant pleas for restraint nor the politicians' bursts of outrage is likely to change banker behavior. This is why the banks are doing so little (and most are doing nothing) to reduce the size of their bonuses. On Wall Street the din of populist outrage is drowned out almost entirely by the sonorous jingle of bonus money.

People say that shareholders have no control over executive compensation. In fact, it appears that a clear rule of thumb about executive compensation has emerged on Wall Street. When banks make profits, the managers keep 40%-50% of the take, and the rest goes to the shareholders, either by being re-invested in the company or paid as dividends.

John S. Reed, a former CEO of Citigroup, said a few days ago that the banks won't regain the public's trust until they reduce bonus payments. He contends that the bankers have learned nothing from the crisis, and that "They just don't get it. They are off in a different world."

Mr. Reed is mistaken. It is the government, not that the shareholders, that is incapable of making a win-win deal with our financial institutions. And it is the government, not the banks, that has lost the public's trust. The public has been giving the banks credible and convincing votes of confidence all year by bidding up the value of their shares. It cannot seriously be argued that investors are ignorant of bonus arrangements.

Politicians are frustrated because they are virtually powerless to stop the flow of bonus payments to bankers. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) thinks that the U.S. should follow the lead of Britain, France and Germany and levy heavy taxes on bonuses. While such action might placate some people, it is the shareholders, not the banks, who will end up paying this tax. Worse, this sort of tax will not affect banker behavior, because it will not reduce (and probably will increase) the government's proclivity to bail out banks that have made bad bets.

There is only one way to resolve the bonus problem. We should continue to let shareholders pay their managers whatever and however they want. But we must get out of the business of guaranteeing against failure. The bankers and the shareholders who enjoy the rewards of risk-taking should be made to act like real capitalists: They should be required to assume the risks that go along with the banks' business activities.

Banks that are considered too big to fail should be dismantled into smaller pieces that the economy can digest. And the government should make it clear that it will allow these institutions to fail. When this happens, the shareholder-owners of these banks will pay their managers much more sensibly—and Mr. Obama will be able to wash his hands of the business of helping out the fat cat bankers on Wall Street.

Mr. Macey is a professor at Yale Law School and a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on Property Rights.