Originally Posted by HKG_Flyer1
One director received more than $61,000 under this perk. That would cover 145 round trips between New York and Tokyo... by Ms. Haddon's calcualtion.
That works out to $420 per round trip!!
Sigh, another example of sloppy/biased reporting. It's hard to believe that the article's author, Gretchen Morgenson, isn't more closely supervised.... particularly given the problems with facts the New York Times has suffered recently.
Well, I guess the question is, how does AA account for those costs? If a director books an F ticket, does AA write it down as $15k? Or do they book it as actual cost of transportation (fuel, labor, depreciation, food, alcohol)? If it's the latter, the $420 per RT figure makes more sense.
Regarding Morgensen, she's sort of the Grand Dame of the NYT business page these days. I think she carved out a large reputation for herself reporting the numerous business scandals of the late 90's and early 00's so is given carte blanche to do whatever she wants. And to be fair, she did ask AA to provide more reasonable estimates on the cost of this program and they refused to do so.