In Defense of Corporate Aircraft. No, Really.

The Wall Street Journal has had a jolly good time recently exposing a small example of corporate excess: It seems that during the years Jeff Immelt was the chief executive of General Electric Co., the company often sent a back-up plane on his travel in case something happened to the corporate aircraft he was using.

The practice was first revealed in mid-October, in a Journal story that was mostly about how GE’s new CEO, John Flannery, was cutting costs. Four months on the job, he’d already shut down three research centers. He cut out the 700 company cars. He has delayed the construction of a new headquarters building in Boston. And he is planning to soon unveil a series of major steps aimed at both restructuring the company and reducing costs by $2 billion, a target Immelt set before stepping down.