The Day I Learned Why Executives Fly Private
Nine amazing hours on a far-from-average workday
I was about ten years into my career and had managed to move a couple rungs up the corporate ladder. My company was in the travel industry, and I was frequently taking business trips — almost always aboard planes, and almost always in economy class.
Until one morning, when I was told I’d be traveling on a private jet in two days’ time.
The backstory
My company was in position to finalize a major partnership, and I would be leading an integration team on our side. We needed to get to Dallas for a meeting to sign an agreement and outline the project with our counterparts at the partner firm.
Accompanying me would be my boss (a CFO) and his boss, the company’s CEO. But the CEO had a jam-packed schedule on the day of the meeting, including an evening event near his home in Westlake Village, California.
His solution for our meeting in Dallas: we’d fly private.
With the Globetrotters Writing Challenge for May focused on transportation, I decided to take the opportunity to compare and contrast the logistics of flying private versus taking a scheduled round-trip on a commercial carrier.
