Ford US Boss's $1m Flying Perks Grounded

[XA Coupsta]

Article as seen on SMH.com.au

Rather 'nice' of him to stop using the company jet isnt it - specially when he's proposing to cut 45,000 jobs.

Article here - http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/...095944973.html

Ford boss's $1m flying perk grounded

Mark Fields ... corporate jet setting days are numbered.

The head of Ford Motor Co's money-losing North American operations - who is overseeing plans to shed more than 45,000 workers - told employees that he had given up use of a corporate jet for personal travel, an expensive benefit that had come under fire.

Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas, had been granted personal use of a company jet under the terms of an employment contract signed when he took over responsibility for Ford's restructuring in late 2005.

Fields' trips from Detroit to his home in Florida became controversial in recent weeks after the provision in his contract was highlighted by a Detroit television station and challenged at a time when the carmaker is losing billions and slashing jobs.

The cost of flying Fields for the fourth quarter of 2005 was $273,065, according to a proxy statement filed by Ford with the Securities and Exchange Commission in April. The carmaker has not yet disclosed the cost for 2006.

In 2005, Fields and then-Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr were the only Ford executives permitted to use the company aircraft for personal travel.

Fields, 45, told Ford employees in a webcast on Thursday that he would no longer use a corporate jet for personal trips, a company spokesman said.

"He has made a decision not to use company aircraft for personal travel," said Ford spokesman Tom Hoyt. "He did not want that issue or any other issue to distract the North American team."

Hoyt said Fields would use commercial aircraft to fly from Detroit to his permanent home in Florida and the company would pay for his flight.

Fields's use of a company jet was featured in a series of reports on automotive executive benefits by WXYZ-TV in Detroit late last year and became the topic of a critical editorial in the trade publication Automotive News.

Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally, who was lured away from Boeing Co to head the carmaker in September, also was questioned recently by Ford dealers about the practice.

Hoyt said the decision to stop using the company plane had been a "personal decision" by Fields.

Fields is overseeing a restructuring that calls for the closing of 16 plants and cutting of nearly 45,000 workers.

Ford lost $US7 billion ($8.9 billion) during the first nine months of 2006 and further losses are forecast in the October-December period quarter and beyond.

By Ford's own estimate, its North American unit will lose money until 2009 and run through $US17 billion cash in the next three years.

Reuters