I made a real boo-boo a couple weeks ago. I have been working for CarMax for the past 3 years. I had an opportunity to talk with someone a little high up in the corporation and asked them why the corporate aircraft had made quite a few trips to the Bahama’s! I said that we don’t have a store down there, and the a/c was there only for a couple hours each time. Went down for lunch and back? Well, I was told they would check into it. Next thing I know N45KX has been blocked!
I guess I stepped on someones toes in corporate - but at least I’m still employed!
I saw that a/c when it was jumping around the northwest.
I think it is impolite to make assumptions much less ask somebody about a flight their aircraft made. I think chatter on here has caused some aircraft to become blocked. Googling the tail number brings up references in these discussions (ie N1KE).
I never mentioned I saw it here, but I was just curious why they were headed down there. Mostly, I always watched so I could see where we were going to be opening new stores!
Have said before that despite all its positive benefits, too much publicity for FA in some areas MAY be bad for some of us trackers. Nothing illicit here but biz operators blocking more and more a/c? There will be nothing for me to watch out for…
“Loose talk costs lives” a famous adage from WW2; may have cost you your job especially where corporate aviation involved.
Cessna Citation x wants to hand out business cards fer’cris’sake. I would love to hear from a high level rep in a company flight department on their views on Joe-Public following their movements.
Boy, I must have really stirred up a hornets next. I just got reamed out today by our General Manager at the store. In a nutshell, I was told that it was none of my business as well as I had no idea what I was talking about - up to and including that any time that aircraft is used for personal use, it’s always paid back. Yeah, right - around $2-2500 an hour to operate a LJ45 to fly to the Bahamas and back for lunch? I’ve referred this portion back to find out why the stink!
If that’s your pic you use as an avatar, I guess there’s a chance some fellow worker at CarMax will know who mm505 is… (Unless you were witty enough to use a fictional company name, but after reading your story, I doubt that)
There are many possible reasons some people (usually corporate bigwigs) may go spend a couple of hours in the Bahamas, amongst those, a quick roll of the dice, in the hay or maybe even…for some discreet banking activity?
Let’s just hope you didn’t hit any sensitive spot.
When you said “Hey, at least I didn’t get fired over it!”, you forgot one word: YET
That avatar is Smiling Bob from the annoying commercials hawking Enzyte…
I already thru out the yet part. I like new users as it keeps these boards fresh, but it can backfire in a case like this. Expect that plane to be blocked soon.
Well, a little more update on what happened. Found out today that he may be having some problems with what he said to me because he wasn’t acting on behalf of the company! Ouch! There is a No Retaliation clause in our corporate guidelines, and unfortunately (for him), he blew his stack off in front of witnesses!
Major problem with my inquiring about the flights is that if I file an actual request on all of the flights N45KX has been on, it would have to be reported to all the shareholders, and some of them wouldn’t be too happy about the lunch flights to the Bahamas!
I retired from AT&T (where we had several A/C) and it was verbotten to take them on anything except official business flights!
Only a “newbie” on the forums, been a member here for 2 years. Been flight tracking as well as a photographer for many, many moons!
What if those flights are not for lunches? Some US corporations have some legit offshore banking activity.
So you had an experience with ATT… Different companies, different policies.
If a person is clever enough to make it to CEO or anywhere else in those upper echelons, he/she’s clever enough to cover his/her tracks and to be able to have prepared a justification for any expenditure or use of company assets. This does not exclude the possibility of doing any other activity while on a trip. An exec flies out to LA for an official meeting, nothing prevents him/her to drop by relative’s place somewhere else in LA. While on an official trip in town, should he/she stay away from family and/or friends under the fear of being accused of misusing company assets?
Today I had a wonderful chat w/ our HR guy. He let me know that the flight was taking the CEO & family to the Bahamas for a vacation. A/C was on the ground for 1 hour and left them there, came back a week later and picked them up. I told the HR guy “that’s all I wanted to know”. He was quite shocked. Said to him “as a share holder, I do have the right to know”. He agreed with that. Told him if the GM of our store had simply answered the question TRUTHFULLY or at least referred me to the right person, we would have never had this problem. Told the HR person that as far as I’m concerned now, this issue is done and over. We were both happy about it.
I had to do a bit of investment research here and I went to the SEC filings for CarMax. In its annual DEF 14A report (AKA Annual Proxy Statement transmitted to shareholders) It is clearly said, on page 21:
“The executive officers are encouraged to use our plane for business travel. Additionally, our plane is available for personal use by Messrs. Folliard, Browning, Dolan and Kunkel when we do not need the plane for business travel.”
So the shareholders ARE informed that upper echelon execs do this.
Like I said earlier, those guys are clever enough to cover their a&&*s
