How many millions of dollars US companies spent on private travel: Mark Zuckerberg’s goal tops the list

According to a report by ISS Corporate Solutions, a US business consultancy, major US companies spent more money during 2021 on private jet travel than in the last 9 years. You have to go back to 2012 to find a figure that exceeds the investment in private jet flights for a full year.

Companies represented in the S&P 500 spent $33.8 million in private flights for its CEOs and board members during 2021according to the Financial Times.

The company that heads the list for the amount of money invested in this kind of private travel is Meta, led by the creator of Facebook, mark zuckerberg that, as this medium had already reported, spent about $1.6 million on private travel. In second place appears Lockhedd Martin spending $1.1 million on private flights for the CEO James Taiclet.

“Keeping Mark safe requires comprehensive and sophisticated resources”a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider magazine. “Given the important role that Mark plays in Meta and the threats to his security arising from his role, Mark is required to use a private plane when he travels for all business and personal travel,” he completed.

For their part, Lockheed Martin said that they expanded spending on private planes during 2021 “in light of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

These figures come to light when several North American companies are coming under fire for the growing disparity between the earnings of CEOs and the average company employee. In early June, a report by the Institute for Policy Studies found that top executives at 300 of the lowest-paid companies in the United States earn about 670 times more than their workers.

Many companies attributed the increased use of private jets to concerns that managers will contract Covid-19 on commercial passenger flights. Both Discover Financial and Lockheed Martin have said that they have allowed executives to spend more freely on private jet travel since the pandemic began.

All this fueled the growth of private aircraft operators such as Wheels Up, sources from this company said they had detected an increase in revenue and passengers earlier this year, while another provider of this service, Jettly, experienced an increase in demand.

“It is quite difficult to go back to commercial flights” once a company has offered private flights to executivessaid Jettly CEO Justin Crabbe.

Another of the companies that increased their spending on private flights is the manufacturer of sandwiches, cookies and snacks Mondelez. Company sources said they gave their executives temporary permission to fly private jets during the pandemic for personal international travel. The multinational’s spending on private jets increased 33 percent to $214,466 in 2021 compared to $160,843 they spent in 2020.

Facts and figures on spending on private jets by some of America’s largest companies show that companies continue to pay their leaders in indirect ways, even though some managers forfeited their base salaries early on. of the coronavirus pandemic.

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