NEW YORK -- Crisscrossing the country in corporate jets may no longer fly in Detroit after car executives got a dressing down from Congress. But on Wall Street, the coveted executive perk has hardly been grounded.
Six financial firms that received billions in bailout dollars still own and operate fleets of jets to carry executives to company events and sometimes personal trips, according to an Associated Press review.
The jets serve as airborne offices, time-savers for executives for whom time is money -- lots of money. And some firms are cutting back, either by selling the planes or leasing them.
Still, Wall Street's reliance of the rarified mode of travel has largely escaped the scorn poured on the Big Three automakers.
Insurance giant American International Group Inc., which has received about $150 billion in bailout money, has one of the largest fleets among bailout recipients, with seven planes, according to a review of Federal Aviation Administration records.
"Our aircraft are being used very sparingly right now," AIG spokesman Nicholas J. Ashooh said. "I'm not saying there's no use, but there's very minimal use."
To cut costs, AIG sold two jets earlier this year and is selling or canceling orders for four others.
Five other financial companies that got a combined $120 billion in government cash injections -- Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley -- all own aircraft for executive travel, according to regulatory filings earlier this year and interviews.
A cross-country trip in a mid-sized jet costs about $20,000 for fuel. Maintenance, storage and pilot fees put the cost far higher.
Many U.S. companies are giving up the perk. The inventory of used private jets was up 52 percent as of September, according to recent JPMorgan data on the health of the private aircraft industry.
A few big U.S. companies have shunned jet ownership. Chip maker Intel Corp., for example, requires executives and employees to fly commercial. Intel occasionally charters jets for executives on overseas trips for security reasons, though.
For automakers, the public relations nightmare exploded last month when the chief executives of Ford, GM and Chrysler were criticized for flying on corporate jets to Washington to ask Congress for federal bailout money.
When the executives went back to Capitol Hill two weeks later for a second round of hearings, they traveled by car.
So why were Wall Street executives spared from the corporate-jet backlash? One reason is that they didn't have to go before Congress to request bailout money, so no one asked how they traveled to Washington.
SEC rules require publicly held companies to disclose executives' personal use of corporate aircraft. But there's "a lot of gray area" in how they do it, said David Yermack, a finance professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University who has studied the matter.
"If you use the plane for a personal trip but make one business call, should you report it?" he said. "Or if you're playing golf with potential business partners, does a company report that as business or personal?"
As mounting losses force companies to cut costs, some are becoming stingier about personal use of the company plane. Merrill Lynch & Co., for example, has banned such trips, according to company filings.
Experts say other companies that took bailout money will probably follow suit.
"The personal use of these planes is virtually indefensible at this point," said Patrick McGurn, special counsel at shareholder advisory firm RiskMetrics Group. "Once you're on the federal dole, the pressure is going to become immense on these firms to cut these costs."
Private jet manufacturers say the debate over executive travel has been overblown.
"What people don't understand is that business jets are mobile offices," said Robert N. Baugniet, Gulfstream's director of corporate communications. "If time has any value to you, then you'll understand why people use business jets."
He said the dustup hasn't hurt orders for new planes.
Some corporate chieftains make no excuses for flying the private skies.
After years of railing against such costs, billionaire investor Warren Buffet broke down in 1989 and bought a Gulfstream IV-SP using $9.7 million in company funds. He named the aircraft "The Indefensible."
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