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Ban on private jets lifted from bailout program

The Associated Press

January 14, 2009

Bank executives will get to fly their company jets after all.

Financial institutions that get assistance through the $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program had faced a provision that recipients of the money would be prohibited from owning or leasing private aircraft.

But Kansas is one of the nation's centers of aircraft manufacturing, and state lawmakers complained that the provision could reduce aircraft orders, cost jobs and damage the industry's image. So yesterday, Barney Frank (D-Mass.), head of the House Financial Services Committee and the author of the bill, lifted the jet ban. In a letter to Frank on Monday, Rep. Dennis Moore, a Kansas Democrat on the committee, wrote that the industry employs more than 44,000 in Kansas and that suppliers employ many more.

Relinquishing the jets was part of a broader provision that included limits on executive compensation. Chrysler, GM and Ford Motor Co. executives caused a stir when they flew into Washington in private jets last year to plead their case for a bailout from Congress.