Jets don’t fly people, people fly people!
Once again corporate private jets are back in the news connected to allegations of improper use. In this case, the allegations pertain to Richard Roberts, president of Oral Roberts University, and his potential misuse of the institution’s private jet. It’s news like this that lends credibility to the weak claims that private jets–be they fractional, chartered or owned outright–are obscenely extravagant. It’s not true and it that misses the larger point.
According to an Associated Press report, three former Oral Roberts University professors are suing Mr. Roberts asserting that he has misued university funds in a host of ways, including spending $29,411 for his daughter and some of her friends to fly on the private jet from Tulsa, OK to Orlanda, FL and the Bahamas for a senior trip. (A report in the New York Times today includes a photo of Mr. Roberts next to the private jet.)
Let’s for the sake of argument only say that the allegation is true. Even still, it has nothing to do with private jets, of course, and everything to do with humans making poor and, at times, unethical decisions. Yes, private jets can be used for the most lavish and extravagant of reasons, though that will always be in the eye of the beholder. And, yes, sometimes private jets–like cars, boats, trains, guns, and just about everything else–can be misused. But the misuse stems from people not from things, fractional or otherwise.
