Last night I woke to hear John Roberts and Kiran Chetry talking about Oprah and her private jet. In an address to graduating students at Duke University, Oprah said (not unreasonably) that “It’s great to have a private jet. Anyone that tells you that having your own private jet isn’t great is lying to you.”
Chetry, speculated, as news readers are increasingly wont to do, whether this comment might change public opinion - which has been a bit of a downer for private jet industry - and thus go some way to rescure the beleagured small plane makers. This is a lamentable confusion between principals and agents.
There is a distinction that might help here: private jets are fine; corporate jets are another matter. Why? Because what individuals spend their own money on should generally be of no real concern to anyone else. Since Oprah owns her production company, when the company buys (or leases) a jet Oprah, as an officer of the company is spending money that belongs to Oprah, chte company's owner.
Executives of public companies who buy corporate jets are not spending their own money - they spending their shareholders' money. When companies are going broke and shareholders see the looming possibility that they will loose their entire investment in that company, it's understandable that they are unhappy with the people thy have appointed as their agents spending what remains of their money on what they may consider to be unnecessary luxiaries.
There may well be a case to be made that corporate jets do pay their way - but that is cost justification agents must make to their shareholders. Agents should not assume that they have the same rights regarding the way they spend the company's many as Oprah and others who own the companies they run do.
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