Corporate Jet Arguments Hit the Height of Absurdity

Oh, joy. There is that mantra again: “It’s good for business. It’s good for business!” [“Corporate Jets Adding Mileage to Bottom Line,” May 16].

More corporate jets into the nation’s busiest general aviation airport, Van Nuys. Just what we need--more noise, more smog, more money to fight us homeowners.

These businesses and pilot lobbyists, who refuse to fly quietly and purchase quieter aircraft, use campaign contributions to the mayor and City Council members while they quietly threaten a weak city attorney’s office with threats of lawsuits if real restrictions were put in place. Why? Because it might cost them money and jobs.

Falling property values, sleepless nights and little exposure by the press as more jets and helicopters crowd the skies over the Valley are just such a pleasure to live with. This costs all of us millions of dollars too, but who is considering that?

WAYNE WILLIAMS

Sherman Oaks

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* Your article on the “financial sense” of corporate jets, that “rank-and-file employees are getting on board” left me laughing. You claimed that a shiny new $10-million Gulfstream paid for itself “many times over.” But about the only evidence you cited was that corporate bigwigs don’t have to fly in steerage with the rest of us shorts-wearing, bowling-ball-packing serfs (a fair number of whom have probably been put out on the street by these guys’ companies).

Oh, but then there are those big hotel bill savings. It certainly makes perfect financial sense to spend $10 million to save $100 a night every week or so at the Hilton.

But by far the most unconvincing was the “boost in morale” argument. One has to wonder if these types aren’t already pretty high on the morale scale after being showered with all those bigpost-layoff bonuses.

All the marketing hyperbole from “industry leaders” just reinforced what the business jet has been and always will be: a bloated corporate perk for bloated corporate stuffed shirts.

GEORGE PECK

Rancho Palos Verdes