Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
High Flyers and Soaring Inequality
Private and corporate jet sales are taking off, reflecting an increase in the extreme concentration of wealth in the United States and around the world.
Worldwide sales of private jets have more than doubled since 2003, to $19.4 billion in 2007. The number of jets sold increased 28 percent between 2006 and 2007 alone, and sales are up sharply in the first quarter of 2008. Corporate jet ownership has increased by about 70 percent since the early 1990s. Demand for private jets is so high that a used jet bought in 2006 can now be sold at a handsome profit.
But where luxury items like a fancy bottle of wine or a Picasso painting are simply a private extravagance, private jet use imposes real costs on everyone who isn't a high flyer -- and on the planet. The costs are documented in "High Flyers: How Private Jet Travel is Straining the System, Warming the Planet and Costing You Money," a new report issued today by the Institute of Policy Studies and Essential Action (an organization I direct). (See: http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/#461 )
Soaring private jet use reflects and is emblematic of skyrocketing wealth inequality, in the United States and globally. Private jet sales grew in parallel with commercial air travel until 1997. Then as wealth inequality began to ascend to stratospheric levels, so did private jet use.
The rise of a global billionaire class has globalized the private jet market. The main manufacturers report that half or more of sales are coming from outside of North America.
Private and corporate jets give the super-rich not just ease and comfort, convenience and luxury -- including an escape from the bothers of security lines and flight delays -- but a way to distinguish themselves from everyone else. Private jet marketing explicitly emphasizes the elite status and conspicuousness of this consumption.
And, because the ultra-rich are always eager to distinguish themselves from the very rich, private jets are becoming more luxurious and expensive. Boeing's largest business jet costs $67 million. Other companies sell airplanes that are nearly as costly: Airbus's priciest plane goes for $55 million, while Gulfstream Aerospace's G550 sells for $46 million. A relative handful of the high flyers set aside Learjets and the like as child toys, and insist on owning their own personal jumbo jet -- Boeing 757s and the like.
Fueling the take-off in jet use is not just concentrating wealth, but numerous subsidies. Amazingly, U.S. taxpayers subsidize private jet use and ownership. Corporate CEOs flying on jets for vacation on personal use pay personal income tax based on the value of the gifted flight -- but the value is calculated based on much lower commercial airfares. Most startlingly, the 2008 Economic Stimulus Act enables private jet buyers to take a "bonus depreciation" -- allowing them to take larger tax deductions in the first year after purchase than they otherwise would.
Private jet use is subsidized as well by commercial air traffic. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, general aviation -- the segment of the industry that includes corporate jets, charters, air taxis, and recreational pilots -- uses 16 percent of the FAA's services, but pays just 3 percent of the cost. Very substantial amounts of federal funds spent on airport improvement between 2005 and 2007 -- $2.2 billion of $7 billion total -- went to small airports that primarily serve private jets. These are places like California's Napa Valley Airport.
Private jet use is further subsidized through corporate profligacy, at the expense of workers, consumers and shareholders. Personal use of the company jet is the most common perk for CEOs of large U.S. companies. The Corporate Library has found that more than half of 215 companies surveyed allowed or required -- yes, required; it's supposedly a security precaution -- executives to use company aircraft on personal trips, with a median annual cost of $182,929.56.
Perhaps the worst element of private jet use is the environmental damage. Burning airplane fuel spews huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, making air travel a significant contributor to global warming. Private jet travel is far less efficient than commercial air flights, because so few people are transported on each private jet flight.
Four passengers flying in a private Cessna Citation X from Los Angeles to New York, for example, would each be responsible for more than five times as much CO2 emitted by a commercial air passenger making the same trip.
And that's a very generous calculation, given estimates that 40 percent of private jet flights are empty -- as pilots return home rather than sit idle waiting for a return trip.
At least some in the industry aren't very sensitive to these considerations. Robert Baugniet, senior manager of corporate communications for Gulfstream Aerospace told my colleague Jennifer Wedekind that concerns about the private jet contribution to global warming "fallacious."
"So if you go in a bus and pump out a whole bunch of CO2 into the environment, but because you've got 40 passengers on board it's OK?" he queries. (Answer: Not OK, but a whole lot better.) In the aggregate, says Baugniet, air travel is a relatively small contributor to global warming, and private jet travel is a small part of that. So, what's the big deal?
To the extent that private jets are symbols of an economic system gone awry, remedying the problem will require big picture policy changes -- steep wealth and income taxes and other measures to redress inequality, and comprehensive policies to address global warming.
But soaring private jet use also demands its own response. Tax breaks for buying and flying private jets should be ended. Private jets should pay, at least, their fair share of FAA costs. And a hefty luxury tax should be imposed on private jet sales and flying.
We shouldn't be supporting the High Flyers in their luxury indulgence. If such heavy-polluting opulence is to be permitted at all, the super-rich should pay a stiff price for the privilege.
Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and director of Essential Action.
(c) Robert Weissman
11 Comments so far
Show All"Come fly with me"---------------
Opening the door for the "super rich" to pay more for the "privilege to pollute" will simply make them more likely to "buy off more privilege" and so it continues onward to new horizons.
The accumulation of great wealth for a relative few can only create more poverty for others----unless that wealth is taxed, heavily, and the revenues used for projects and programs benefiting the WHOLE PLANET and the environment; instead of what the USA does now. The alternative to the taxation might be the "diversion" of that "taxable wealth" to programs that benefit the environment, and those not in a position to gain that sort of wealth. They could either "give it away" or have it "given for them". They could choose where the money went or have it go by the choice of the many.
That is a dream that Marx and others had, and it proved to have fallen short of it's intended goals. In the process it created much sorrow and misery for the entire planet.
Perhaps human kind needs to continue making the same mistakes, either to lead in it's demise, or to do the "natural thing" and learn from their mistakes, and NOT repeat them.
In the past few hundred years human kind may have learned from some mistakes. Monarchies in the original form have been replaced, but not often with viable alternatives. Except for a few areas of the planet where ignorance is the dominating force; religion has fallen into disuse and practice, to be replaced with secular humanism----which does work. The areas where religion is a dominating factor such as the USA, the same old mistakes continue. Just one example: In 2008 it was announced that a New Catholic Cathedral has been erected in Houston, Tx at the cost of $50M. At the same time, Houston, the fifth largest city in the USA (this may be off a place or two) has one of the largest homeless and hungry populations of the country. At the same time, Multi-millionaire TV evangelists enjoy very comfortable opulent lives while their viewers send them millions in "offerings" each week so that the "Gospel of Jesus" can be preached to the world.
------To many agnostics this alone is proof that Jesus/God do not exist otherwise, "Jesus would come back and kick some ass for having used his and 'dads' names for such injustice, and ego worship "--------------
It all centers around "ego and power".
"POWER" or the illusion of power is the main motivation in such behavior. With great wealth comes great power. How that power is used makes the difference. The great wealth of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was contained by even fewer than possess it now. They lived in great opulence and wielded great power upon the rest of humanity and the environment. They named many projects after themselves or were granted the recognition as
"Great Americans, or Tycoons, or etc " but few people remember them now, which would have "pained the egos" of those "great people".
The people who will be remembered the longest, with the most fondness, have not yet made that remarkable move. Human nature being what it is, no one of great wealth, who generated that wealth themselves or inherited it, then gave it away for the benefit of others, has made the same impact as the present negative examples have impressed others.
I would personally recognize as "Pwerful and Great" the human being that "gave away great wealth, and took the train" than what is given as the example presently.
And if I were to gain such wealth, I would have more fun giving it away than I could ever have spending it. THEN I could ride the "non-polluting train", with the windows open-------anywhere I wanted to go.
Humanity has a long long way to go----hopefully they will not blow themselves into oblivion, before they realize their true potential.
"Come fly with me, come fly away with me"
Ha! I love it! And us peons are trying to save the planet by carpooling and biking!
This time around in history, it is not just that such inequality offends, it is also that it is destroying the commons--it is a matter of survival.
The "cool factor" for this kind of behavior is going to have a very short half-life--the planes will be shortly be heading to the bone yard.
www.StudentsForTheEarth.org
Interesting to think that when the planet finally ceases to function, they have somewhere else to go?
You'd think by now that people would have realised that once we screw this up, there's no way off for any of us -- like the Titanic, but no lifeboats for the rich either.
Of course, if this is how they think -- "I'm entitled"-- it's no surprise that American corporations are as screwed up as they are.
As is clearly stated in another article here today - Carbon Tax...simple - the more you use, the more you pay. This would be a good start along with a luxury tax and a progressive Sales Tax. All these relatively simple - mathematically, that is - solutions have been discussed ad nauseum. Time for Action.
What does or has the ruling class of any human society cared about anything outside the bubble of its own gated existence? You see, this grouping is the diseased branch of the human tree. It has never known the life risks of going out on a limb -- has never touched ground -- and actually cares nothing about giving back to the trunk that is forced to support it.
As to that darling tax break, I believe something similar occured with the really big ticket road vehicles. Seems the behemoth Lincoln Navigator (cost what, about $50,000?) fell under the law that provides tax relief for farmers requiring large tractors and farm equipment!
NATIVE SON: I wrote a futuristic vision based on the year 2020 when mankind regained its BALANCED VISION, and had those who were title owners become title givers. There are always some among the very wealthy who DO provide philanthropy and DO further humane causes. Reagan introduced an era akin to a GREED ORGY and thus made it more fashionable NOT to give. Anyone remember the Saturday Night Live spoof where a rich couple nearly gives a homeless man a dollar, but then decide instead to spend it so it can trickle down?
According to the ultra wealthy political manifestos - government involvement in frivolous crap like food, health care, shelter and clothing for elderly, children or poor leads to chronic dependency. If that is true, how can wealthy welfare be tolerated? These bold completely independent people who have pulled themselves up entirely by their own bootstraps - just ask them. I am sure they are all sending the money back so that they stay totally cool with their Ayn Rand philosophy. They should pay extra taxes voluntarily just to be safe.
The faster the wealth accumulates, the sooner The Revolution......
American will fight before they'll give up their pick-up trucks.
sosadsosad
We enable the rich to maintain that they are above the rules, above responsibility, above morality, above the "common people". So...what are we going to do about it?
I just found out about Al Gores house and his Jets. Could someone explain how this works?