General Electric (Newburgh) plans to ground its fleet of corporate jets and will switch to chartered capacity in a bid to reduce costs, reports The Wall Street Journal.
The corporate fleet has traditionally been used to ferry company executives. Moreover, the CEO is required to use private aircraft as a security measure. However, new CEO John Flannery is looking to cut USD2 billion in expenses by the end of 2018. Bloomberg estimates that personal travel by GE executives cost the company USD1.4 million over the past three years. According to the WSJ report, previous CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, spent more than USD250,000 on personal trips in 2016; that figure does not include business trips.
According to FAA records, GE owns a HondaJet HA-420, one E505, two AgustaWestland AW139 helicopters, three Bombardier CL-600s, two Bombardier Global Express 5000s, three Gulfstream IVs, and two Cessna Cessna 560 XL/XLSs. It also has one Boeing B747-400 N747GF (msn 26355) which is used for engine testing purpose. It will look to sell off some of these aircraft, although which ones have not been revealed.
Starting Wednesday, executives will need to switch to alternative transport, although some helicopter and aircraft services will remain.
