“Do other companies have a flight policy for directors and executive management, and if so, what are their restrictions on directors travelling together by airplane. Please also share whether or not there are restrictions on executive management travelling together in numbers.”
Policy on XXXX plc Director and Senior Executive Travel
In line with a risk assessment on various modes of travel, and consideration of the business benefits of executives being able to travel together, the following travel guidelines are recommended:
We have a limit on benefits payable for “any one conveyance” under our PA/Travel insurance policy which forces us to consider this issue, regardless of the common sense/risk management aspects.
As policy, we would never fly the board on a single plane, and we always separate those people who could conceivably cover one another (for example, chairman/CEO, FD/Audit Committee chairman, CEO/CFO).
In practice, it’s challenging to enforce. No-one wants to hang around airports waiting for “the later flight” and they always argue that the road journey to the airport is more hazardous than the flight. Being in control of the flight bookings is my key means of enforcement!
Yes, our policy is to avoid the whole Board travelling/flying together. Within that, we seek to avoid the Chairman travelling with the CEO or SID.
With the Board members emanating from different jurisdictions we are only really tested on the occasions where the Board meets overseas. In these circumstances we split the Board on different flights.
For Executive Committee members we have a limit of 4 members travelling together. There will be occasions where this is not feasible but we challenge appropriately.
It’s all down to appropriate risk management rather than rigid adherence to policy.
We have a policy. The Board can’t all travel together and would go on at least two (but normally three) planes. The same applies to other groups (eg subsidiary boards and key groups of people). Most of the time it works well.
We have a policy that the Board will travel in at least two aircraft. We try and split key directors for example the Chairman not travelling with the CEO and the CEO not travelling with the Finance Director. We don’t have a formal policy for other senior management but do try to avoid having large numbers, especially from the same department on one flight.