“Jet Gate” was a bit of an embarassment all ’round. Even Detroit’s fiercest critics (oh me! pick me!) understand that a business jet is an acceptable expense when you’re running a multi-national corporation. Provided, of course, you use the jet to get an efficient, realistic, first-hand look at conditions “on the ground” within your far-flung Empire; from factories to suppliers to dealers. Rather than, I dunno, ferrying the wife and kids back and forth to Seattle. Or flying to one location that’s well-served by commercial traffic. Anyway, Detroit’s chastened uber-suits made a big show of selling the jets (how’s that going guys?) and wheeling into DC (for round two) in their companies’ most fuel efficient products. Well, not the most efficient. That would have hurt. And now, thanks to The Detroit News’ Charlie LeDuff, TTAC can reveal that Mr. Mulally and Mr. Wagoner’s drivers– yes, drivers– “split the job.” What’s more, “Those who drove the executives to Washington flew home to Detroit, while those charged with driving the executives back flew one way to Washington to pick them up.” LeDuff says “In the end, it would have been cheaper to fly the jets.” But we couldn’t possibly comment.
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Thank you for the reality check. General aviation needs all of the friends it can get and jet-gate didn’t help things at all. Even the folks flying smaller piston-driven aircraft are affected by the folks flying larger jets like Gulfstreams and Citations. Much of the general aviation infrastructure is in place because of the demands of business aviation.
And there is still the question of what it cost to have that Voltmule waiting in DC for RIR to “Greenstand” with it at the capitol.
Hope the MSM makes a stink about this before more taxbux sink into the hole that is GM.
Bunter
It always struck me as funny that these CEO’s, who are allegedly operating consumer products companies, couldn’t figure out who their audience was.
It should have been obvious that getting the funds from Washington on terms that the car companies would find acceptable would be easier if they had the support of the public. They should have turned the whole journey into a prolonged road show that was on the nightly news for days before the meeting, so that the pump was primed and the PR was at a fever pitch.
And being car companies, it would be sort of obvious that they should use cars to get there. After all, if you are trying to show off your product, it helps to show people that you use it and (can pretend to) like it.
The whole gaffe is a poignant example of how out of touch they are with their constituents. They don’t understand that the customer must be satisfied, that life gets substantially easier for the company if consumers are personally motivated to hand over their money. If they couldn’t figure that out, it makes you wonder how they could possibly face all of the other issues that will need to be confronted for a bailout to succeed.
“Rather than, I dunno, ferrying the wife and kids back and forth to Seattle.”———–Jail this guy NOW.
………….. Yep, plenty self-inflicted problems for these guys…. but I still call CheapShot on all the Jet-Gate airstrikes.
A very bad PR faux paus to be sure, but other than that a non-story.
Jail this guy NOW.
That would be mark Ford for you.
A very bad PR faux paus to be sure, but other than that a non-story.
On the contrary, I think that this is the story.
They don’t understand the market. They are asking for money because of their longstanding inability to understand the market.
If they are going to come out of this alive, they need to understand their audience and provide them with what they want. This event shows that they don’t understand. Can we honestly expect them to make it if they couldn’t even get this right?
Also loved the fact that it’s a Honda jet pictured…
Agreed pch101.
While I don’t critcize them for spending money to get the Volt to DC – good marketing costs money, that’s just the way it is – the fact that they so mis-judged this the first time and had to be smacked upside the head by Congress, the MSM, and the general public, is perfectly exemplary of the reason all these guys, and the 1000 people immediately below them in marketing, PR, accounting and product development, need to be out with the trash.
They honestly have NO IDEA how to run a competitive company, and they proved it most recently 3 weeks ago!
Here’s an even more shocking suggestion: $138 round trip tickets on SouthWest Airlines…
Does anyone have the data that shows that Wagoners lone salary equaled the top 14 execs at Toyota? I cannot find the old news item where this was discussed nor remember which one it was (too many deathwatch, bailout watch, etc. news items / editorials and posts).
So these modern day potentates didn’t even drive themselves? Do they even posess valid driver’s licenses?
These turds should be forced to drive their own products to the office every day and change cars every 90 days so they and sample the full range of their meager offerings. Can you image RIR in an Aveo?
I was personally holding out for some pics of the Rick’ster operating the Cobalt XFE with the manual transmission. No such pics have surfaced.
Does anyone have the data that shows that Wagoners lone salary equaled the top 14 execs at Toyota?
You can quite easily find Katsuaki Watanbe and Fujio Cho’s salaries. Add them together, and you’ll get a number much lower than Rick Wagoner’s take-home.
Cho and Watanabe do much the same job as Wagoner. That you have to add a few more Toyota executives in to reach Rick’s Peak is just insult to injury.
From the original Detroit News article: “In the end, it would have been cheaper to fly the jets.”
Yes, flying the jets might have been cheaper than the rolling dog and pony show. Drivers have to be paid to drive and flown back, the Volt mule has to be flat-bedded to DC, its techs and handlers ferried, lodged and fed.
But, if the intended mission wasn’t a badly executed PR stunt but just to bring Wagoner, Mullaly and Nardelli to DC to testify, the cheapest option was still for them to fly there on commercial carriers.
Looks like $644 each. Coach, of course. Anybody should be able to survive an hour or two in coach. I’ll bet GM could get a corporate discount, too.
The honchos could spend the time doing market research. It has probably been a while since they spent an hour talking to someone who had to pay for his own wheels and wasn’t required to buy one of their products.
You could write a whole series of articles on the PR mistakes the Big 3 have made. Or the opposite – why does Toyota have so much public goodwill? Some of it is through engineering, but they followed through with perfect PR. The Big 3 have consistently been really bad at that. In an industry like this, it matters!
It’s fully half the battle… and they didn’t win the other half either.
Mr. Farago:
We all know how much trouble the “Detroit Three” is in…primarily GM and Chrysler.
Tell you what let’s do: For those of you who own/drive a GM product, YOU send a “mercy” check to GM. (Rick Wagoner might even send you a personal Thank You note.) Ditto for YOU who own/drive a Chrysler product. (Robert Nardelli might even send you a personal Thank You note.) And yeah, even ditto for YOU Ford owners/drivers. (Alan Mulally will surely appreciate it!)
In the meantime, if MY car company ever hits the skids…I will send HONDA a check, to help them out. Ditto for you who own/drive a Toyota, Nissan, etc. Ditto for you who own/drive a Mercedes, BMW, VW, Porsche, and so forth. You get the picture…
I do NOT own/drive a GM, Ford, or Chrysler product, and NEVER again will. I don’t OWE the “Detroit Three” a DAMN thing!!!
ONLY those of YOU who own/use “Detroit” merchandise and/or services!!!
Fair enough?
N85523, nice Champ.
Nice that its a HondaJet!
LOL @ the HondaJet as photo for the story. TTAC is great, all hail TTAC etc etc
wardenr I don’t want to send GM money just because I was stupid enough to buy one of their products and it’s been costing me ever since. If anything I want to send them a hefty bill for all the misery and moey they have cost me. I did my part trying to help them out already and they decided to screw me good for it, never again.
All the rest of you that think they deserve a bailout your welcome to send them all the money you want, ALL OF YOUR MONEY YOU WANT! If you don’t mind I’ll keep mine and do something else with it. I think they need to be liquidated and let someone competent put their resources to good use since they clearly don’t have the brains to do it themselves.
I agree with calling BS on the whole subject. Perhaps one of the Wichita delegation should figure out which industry is big in the so called gentleman from California’s district, and attack it. I don’t care if it’s tomatoes, software, movies, or whatever. It’s likely a luxury we don’t need.