There may be a service that helps people afraid to fly on Boeing planes find new flights, but one group that’s not scared to fly Boeing are the company’s executives. The plane manufacturer recently disclosed that its C-suite got more than $500,000 in corporate aircraft compensation beyond what it previously said.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the revelations, spelled out in Boeing’s 100-plus-page 2023 proxy statement filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission, came as the result of the paper’s examination last year of the company’s culture around executive travel.
“The amounts attributable to perquisites and other personal benefits reported in this column for [outgoing CEO Dave] Calhoun, [CFO Brian] West, [outgoing commercial airplanes division head Stanley] Deal and [military division head Ted] Colbert for 2022 and 2021, and the resulting ‘Total All Other Compensation’ amounts previously reported for those years, have been revised as set forth below to reflect certain aircraft usage and other travel expenses that were not previously classified as perquisites by the Company,” the company said in its proxy statement.
Boeing has to report how much plane travel its executives do because personal use of company planes counts as income for both tax reasons and as a matter of shareholder interest — the government and investors both want to know how much executives get compensated, in all forms. It’s worth mentioning that Boeing’s CEO “is required to use Company aircraft for all business and personal travel for security reasons,” as a matter of policy.
🛩️ Calhoun got $142,000 more in plane travel in 2021 and 2022 than previously disclosed, a 44% increase
🛩️ West got $250,000 more in plane travel in 2021 and 2022 than previously disclosed, a 229% increase
🛩️ Deal got $74,000 more in plane travel in 2021 and 2022 than previously disclosed; previously Boeing said he got $63,000 in 2022 plane perks, but not how much he got in 2021
🛩️ Colbert got $79,000 more in plane travel in 2021 and 2022 than previously disclosed
Boeing did not previously say exactly how much plane travel Deal and Colbert received in 2021 and 2022 because it only tells shareholders if its executives receive such perks when the value is “the greater of $25,000 or 10% of all benefits.” The additional compensation reported was about $545,000, or double what the company said earlier.
The Journal reports that, according a recording of an internal meeting in November, Calhoun tried to downplay his travel habits. “I don’t want anybody, by the way, to misinterpret a silly article that got published in The Wall Street Journal about me traveling a lot,” Calhoun said, according to a recording of the meeting the Journal reviewed. “That’s my objective. That is what I want to do. That is what I want everybody at the enterprise level to do.”