“„This incident illustrates the degree to which a corporate/financial elite has developed in the US. Top executives feel they have a right to fly on private jets. If the company is, say, a Wal-Mart, with a lot of operations in remote areas where access by commercial flights is indirect, private jets make sense (Sam Walton famously flew his own plane to visit stores). But for Citigroup, where the vast majority of their operations are in major, well served financial centers, it’s hard to justify (the usual rationale is that the top brass can discuss business on a private plane, while they cannot do so on commercial flights. Funny how that was seldom seen as a justification in the early 1980s, when executives were for the most part content to fly first class).