GM Springs Into Action, Asks FAA to Bar Public Tracking of Leased Corporate Jet

Never let it be said that General Motors doesn't react fast enough when there is a crisis. Oh sure, they need a bailout and all, but they're right on top of the issue of making sure we don't know if they are spending corporate revenues in good faith.

Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., criticized by U.S. lawmakers for its use of corporate jets, asked aviation regulators to block the public’s ability to track a plane it uses.

“We availed ourselves of the option as others do to have the aircraft removed” from a Federal Aviation Administration tracking service, a GM spokesman, Greg Martin, said yesterday in an interview. He declined to discuss why GM made the request.

Flight data show that the leased Gulfstream Aerospace G-IV jet flew Nov. 18 from Detroit to Washington, where Chief Executive Officer Richard Wagoner Jr. spoke to a Senate committee that day and a House panel the next day on behalf of a $25 billion auto-industry rescue plan.

Representatives at the Nov. 19 House hearing including Democrat Gary AckermanAlan Mulally and Chrysler LLC CEO Robert Nardelli for taking private jets to Washington to plead their case. of New York faulted Wagoner, Ford Motor Co. CEO

“Couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class?” Ackerman said.

Symbol for Critics

Critics of a federal aid package for GM, Ford and Chrysler spotlighted the exchange to attack the money-losing companies as undeserving of a bailout. GM, the biggest U.S. automaker, has said it may run out of operating cash by year’s end without government loans.