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United States News Title: That Perk in the Sky Has Defenders on Land THERE are bad economic times. Then there are bad economic times made even worse by a furious public and political fallout against high-end spending. The luxury hotel industry, as I’ve said, was the first to feel this effect. It started with understandable public outrage last fall when the insurer American International Group ran up a hotel bill of $443,343.71 for an incentive junket for its salespeople at a fancy Southern California resort five days after accepting a big emergency federal bailout loan. The ensuing furor caused many corporate travel managers across the country to abandon the use of luxury hotels, partly for the sake of appearances. Next to feel the populist heat was the general aviation industry, which had been enjoying two years of record prosperity amid forecasts that $300 billion worth of new planes, primarily business jets, would be sold in the next 10 years. That ride ended. A steadily worsening economy in 2008 caused a 19.3 percent cutback in business-jet flight hours through November, according to a study by J.P. Morgan. Then things suddenly got worse with the Detroit debacle. That was when the three chief executives from the major American automakers used big corporate jets to fly from Detroit to Washington in November to beg for a taxpayer bailout. The business aircraft industry promptly went into free fall as the ensuing outcry clobbered it like a tornado. Now the industry is desperately trying to turn things around with public appeals to “cool the overheated rhetoric on the use of business jets,” as Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, said last week. Mr. Brownback represents a state rich in aviation history and jobs. Two business-aircraft makers, Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft, are based in Wichita. Both companies are presenting the case that — occasional abuses and wretched excesses aside — corporate jets are crucial tools, providing competitively vital access to thousands of secondary airports in markets where commercial air service is inadequate or nonexistent. Jim Schuster, the chief executive of Hawker Beechcraft, is the most prominent industry executive I know who is willing to concede that the Detroit debacle created a perception problem. But, Mr. Schuster added, “to use those three guys and their stupidity, in terms of what they did, to cast a negative light over an entire industry, is a huge mistake.” After the auto executives had used the jets for their Washington trips, even Mr. Schuster said he was taken aback. “I sat back in my chair and put my hands over my eyes and said, ‘Oh, why did they do that?’ ” he said. “It was terrible, terrible judgment on their part, but I don’t think they stopped to think for a minute that people were going to react this way.” I asked him how bad things really are now: “Very bad; the worst we’ve seen. Just due to the economic circumstances, we’d laid off tens of thousands of people across the industry already. So the industry was in a very vulnerable position.” He added, “The optics are one thing, but people don’t understand the effect the backlash is having on the U.S. general aviation industry, a great national asset.” With half of all business jets now sold outside the United States, “it’s one of our few remaining technology exporters,” he said, adding, “We dominate globally. We also provide some of the highest-paying jobs” in an increasingly competitive global aircraft business. We’re going to be hearing a lot more from the business aviation industry — which, until recently, had successfully promoted corporate jets as a valuable aid to increasing productivity. The alternative, the industry argues, is not reliable enough. “Commercial airline service is going to continue to deteriorate,” Mr. Schuster said. Still, he said, sometimes a commercial flight makes more sense than using a private plane, and sometimes a small private plane is better than a big one. “Some companies bought airplanes that exceed their needs,” he said. “When you’re flying a Gulfstream 550 from Detroit to Chicago, unless it’s packed full, it doesn’t make sense. But if you’re flying a G550 from New York to London to Paris to Trinidad and back, that airplane is absolutely invaluable.” Charles D. Mayer, Hawker Beechcraft’s marketing vice president, said: “I came to this company from the automotive industry, and I used to fly on Ford aircraft that would shuttle between company locations in Irvine, Calif.; Detroit; and Arizona. Those airplanes were always packed with 40 or so people. They ran them a couple of times a week, and these folks were all working on those planes. Trust me, it was not luxury travel.” author tag with dummy text.
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