Jet perquisite spending reached a three-year low last year as top employees sheltered in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic. S&P 500 companies spent $93,071 on average per company on jet perks for top executives in 2020, down from $116,805 in 2019 and $115,729 in 2018, according to data from public company intelligence provider MyLogIQ.

“Companies took the tack of traveling less due to the personal health risk that might be involved in sending employees all over the world, but worker compensation and reputational risk also played into the decision to curtail jet use,” said Erik Nelson, director of executive compensation at Willis Towers Watson.

However, some companies opted to use corporate aircraft more frequently to fly executives to business-critical meetings while others extended corporate jet use permissions to directors and executives who didn’t previously have access for safety reasons, filings show. Other companies prohibited personal use of the corporate jet in 2020, opting to save trips for business purposes only.

Sources said the pandemic opened the door for compensation committees to reevaluate the need for corporate jet travel — how often and who uses the jet and how much the board should allow executives to spend on personal and business flights using the company’s aircraft.

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