Computer-storage giant EMC Corp. has a fleet of five jets that it says it uses for business travel across the globe. In addition, CEO Joseph Tucci is allowed "limited" personal use of the aircraft.

Federal Aviation Administration flight records for EMC's planes suggest such personal trips may be more frequent. Over the four years ended last December, EMC jets landed a total of 393 times at three resort locations where Mr. Tucci has vacation homes: Cape Cod, Mass.; the New Jersey shore; and the Florida keys.

undefined

One of EMC's jets devoted 46% of its flights going to or from these and other vacation spots over the four years. Fleet-wide, 31% of EMC flights were to or from resorts.

A Wall Street Journal review of FAA flight records found that dozens of jets operated by publicly traded corporations made 30% or more of their trips to or from resort destinations, sometimes more than 50%. Often, these were places where their top executives own homes. The review covered nearly every jet flight in the U.S. over the four-year period from 2007 to 2010. (Search the full records of FAA flights here.)

The corporate jet is a coveted perk of top executives. But some of the planes aren't being used just for business travel. They're making a large number of trips to resort locations where executives own homes. WSJ's Mark Maremont reports.

Corporate jets are vital business tools that can efficiently carry busy executives to far-flung meetings, sometimes to multiple cities in a day. Allowing occasional personal use of the company plane can form an important part of a compensation package for a top executive.

The high percentage of trips to vacation destinations in a few cases suggests some companies' jets are frequently used by executives to make personal trips. This has stirred doubts among some experts about whether companies are disclosing to shareholders the full amounts spent on personal-jet travel, widely considered the most expensive executive perk.

Under stiffer SEC rules released in 2006, the cost of personal travel on company planes generally must be disclosed if it exceeds $25,000 per year or more than 10% of the cost of all perks. Commuting flights—from, say, a vacation home to headquarters—count as personal travel. Disclosed cost calculations should be those associated with the flights themselves, such as fuel, landing fees and the crew's hotel bills. Not counted are fixed costs, such as the price of the plane and crew salaries.

"Personal use of corporate aircraft is still underreported," said Brink Dickerson, an attorney at Troutman Sanders LLP in Atlanta who advises public companies on the issue. He says people will come up to him after speeches on the topic to describe how they have been reporting personal travel as business travel. "They say, 'This is how we do it, is this OK?' " Mr. Dickerson believes it is appropriate for executives to take personal trips on company planes, but companies should be reporting such use rather than "disguising" it as business travel.

Stewart Reifler, an attorney at Vedder Price in New York who represents executives in negotiating pay packages, said the cost of truly personal trips should be reported, but said it is hard to distinguish a CEO's work time from his leisure time. "Even if they go to a resort," he said, "they're still reviewing papers, looking at their BlackBerrys and talking on the phone. You just can't compartmentalize these guys' lives."

Some companies in the Journal review listed relatively little cost for personal flights in disclosure documents, even as their jets made dozens of trips to resort towns near residences owned by an executive. The FAA data don't show who was on board or the purpose of the flights, so it is impossible for outsiders to know whether there were business reasons to fly to such spots. Also, when leisure trips come amid business trips, the added expense of those flights could be minimal.

In 2009, Leucadia National Corp., a New York City-based conglomerate, reported less than $30,000 on personal flying for Chairman Ian Cumming. FAA records show Leucadia's four jets that year spent 220 hours flying to or from Jackson Hole, Wyo., and New York's Hamptons, both locations where Mr. Cumming owns homes. Those flights alone would have cost $708,000, according to Journal calculations using hourly operating-cost estimates provided by Conklin & de Decker Aviation Information, a consulting firm.

More than half of the flights by Leucadia's four jets from 2007 through 2010 went to or from resort areas (see flights to selected destinations in database); 739 went to spots where top executives have houses. Leucadia declined to comment. A Jackson Hole telephone directory lists a Leucadia office at the same address as a home owned by Mr. Cumming.

EMC pegged the cost to shareholders of Mr. Tucci's personal flying at $664,079 over the four-year period, which represented 97% of all personal-aircraft usage for its executives. The Journal's estimate of the cost of EMC's flights to or from just the airports near the CEO's homes was closer to $3.1 million.

The Hopkinton, Mass., company said in filings that Mr. Tucci is allowed personal use of the planes "to reduce his travel time and devote more time to work duties." In a statement, an EMC spokesman said the company "keeps meticulous corporate aircraft records. Any personal use is reflected accurately in our proxy statement each year. In 2010, Mr. Tucci flew 62.28 hours for personal travel; any use beyond that was for business." (See results in database.)

As shareholder attention has focused on the expense of this perk amid a struggling economy, many companies have begun requiring executives to reimburse for their personal-flying costs, or have banned the practice altogether. Drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co., for example, doesn't allow personal jet travel. "Our customers, shareholders and employees all face economic challenges, and giving executive perks like personal use of aircraft would send the wrong message to all three," a spokesman said.

List of Blocked Aircraft Owners of nearly 7,000 aircraft participate in an FAA-authorized program that allows them to block their tail numbers from being viewed by the public on air-traffic websites. Some owners cite privacy, corporate confidentiality or security concerns. The Journal obtained the full list of blocked aircraft as of January 2011. Here is the list of tail numbers, also known as N-numbers. Where available, the Journal has filled in the operator or owner name listed in FAA records.

About 37% of the S&P 500 companies disclosed aircraft perks for their CEOs in their most recent filings through May 31, according to GovernanceMetrics International, which tracks executive pay, down from 40% the prior year.

Companies that allow use of their aircraft cite a variety of reasons. Yum Brands Inc., which owns Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell, said in regulatory filings that CEO David Novak and his wife are required to use company aircraft for personal and business travel in part because "Mr. Novak has been physically assaulted while traveling."

Likewise, Comcast Corp. says for security, certain senior executives must use company planes for business and personal travel. Last July, the cable giant bought a third jet for its fleet, a new Dassault Falcon 900 that can cost upwards of $40 million. The plane was needed, a spokesman said, because the company anticipated more business travel after its acquisition of NBC Universal.

The new jet's most frequent destination in its first six months, after its home base of Philadelphia, was the island of Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where CEO Brian Roberts has a house. The plane made 24 trips there in that period, mostly in the summer, FAA records show. Starting in October, the jet also began flying to Palm Beach, Fla., where Mr. Roberts has another home. Comcast is a major cable provider throughout the U.S., including in areas such as Martha's Vineyard and south Florida.

By year end, nearly two thirds of the plane's flights were to or from those and six other resort destinations, including Augusta, Ga., Big Sky, Mont., and the Hamptons. (See results in the database.) Over the full four years, 42% of flights made by the Comcast fleet were to or from resort areas, among the highest percentage for the companies reviewed by the Journal. (See results in the database.)

A Comcast spokesman said use of the planes "significantly enhances the efficiency of our executives' conduct of business," and that a "majority" of the aircraft use is for business purposes. He said executives are required to reimburse part of their travel expenses using a formula Comcast won't disclose.

The SEC has brought enforcement actions over failure to disclose aircraft usage. In January, it filed a civil case accusing a Kansas-based website provider, NIC Inc., of failing to disclose perks, including payments for its former CEO to live in a Wyoming ski lodge and commute to headquarters by private jet. NIC and three current and former executives paid a total of $2.8 million to settle, without admitting or denying the allegations.

Many companies prefer to keep their aircraft movements hidden, using an FAA-approved program that allows plane owners to "block" their flights from websites that display air traffic. More than 650 jets operated by U.S. public corporations recently had their flights blocked, the Journal found, including all of EMC's and Leucadia's jets, and two of Comcast's.

The Obama administration in late May announced it would sharply curtail the FAA program starting in August, saying that privacy concerns don't outweigh the public's right to know about the use of public airspace. It would exempt aircraft owners who could show a "valid security threat." Congress is considering a measure that would stop the change.

To analyze corporate flying patterns, the Journal obtained, via a Freedom of Information Act request, records of every private aircraft flight recorded in the FAA's air-traffic system from 2007 through 2010. These included flights previously blocked from public view.

The Journal calculated the percentage of each plane's flights to a list of 300 locales it determined were more likely to be leisure destinations than business. That excluded major cities such as Miami, New York and Paris, and included spots like Palm Beach, Aspen, Colo., and the Bahamas. The list wasn't exhaustive, and was meant to serve as a rough proxy for potential leisure travel.

Cost calculations, which were made using estimates from Conklin & de Decker Aviation Information, often aligned with what companies reported they spent on personal flights. For example, the Journal found that Brown Shoe Co. in St. Louis spent $1.8 million flying a private jet to resort areas over the four years. In its filings in that period, the company reported $1.9 million in personal-aircraft costs for its executives.

In contrast, Nabors Industries Ltd. , a Houston oil-services concern, didn't provide a dollar figure for the cost of aircraft perks for its CEO, Eugene Isenberg, in either 2009 or 2010, indicating the amount was too small to require disclosure. For those two years, FAA records show, Nabors' fleet's most-visited destinations after Houston were New York City, Palm Beach and Martha's Vineyard. Mr. Isenberg owns homes in all three places. (See results in the database.)

The flights to or from Palm Beach or Martha's Vineyard alone would have cost about $704,000, according to Journal estimates.

A Nabors spokesman said the company has offices in those two places, at Mr. Isenberg's homes. "He works out of those locations a lot," said the spokesman, Denny Smith. He also said Mr. Isenberg is frequently in New York on business. The company, he said, "complies with all IRS guidelines and SEC disclosure requirements with respect to the use of company aircraft by its executive officers."

The SEC hasn't taken a position on whether companies can claim that a home office in an executive's house is a company location, and therefore count trips there as business travel, said Alan L. Dye, an attorney at Hogan Lovells in Washington who specializes in executive-pay disclosure. But, said Mr. Dye, "a company might have a difficult time convincing the SEC" that should be allowed.

Ron Mueller, an attorney at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, said travel to someone's house would typically qualify as a perk, even if there is a home office. But, he said, if it overlaps with a business trip, "the amounts may not be large enough to require disclosure."

Other companies say their business interests coincide with spots where their top executives have homes. That is the case at Jarden Corp., a consumer-products concern in Rye, N.Y., that markets K2 and Volkl skis, Mr. Coffee coffee makers and Bicycle playing cards.

The busiest destination for Jarden's jet, after its New York base, was Aspen, Colo., where the company's aircraft landed 151 times over the four years. (See results in database.) Jarden's CEO, Martin Franklin, is an avid skier, and his wife owns a house in Aspen. Ian Ashken, Jarden's chief financial officer, said Mr. Franklin lived in Aspen with his family in 2006 and 2007. He also said that Jarden, as a leading ski maker, sometimes entertains customers in Aspen and has an office there with "no more than two people."

Due in part to that office, the company said, much of Mr. Franklin's jet travel to and from the mountain resort was for business purposes. It also said some Aspen travel involved "repositioning" flights, in which the plane was moved a short distance to save on hangar costs.

Jarden's company jet also flies to offices located in places like Wichita, Kan., and Greenville, Tenn. But about 55% of flights were to or from resort locales, including Aspen and the Caribbean island of Antigua, where Mr. Franklin's father lives. Those flights would have cost the company $3.7 million, according to Journal estimates. In its filings, Jarden reported $1.9 million in personal travel, not including undisclosed reimbursements from executives other than Mr. Franklin.

The company said it is in "full compliance" with SEC regulations. "If we just had a private plane for our personal pleasure, that would be a big no-no. The purpose for having the plane is to enable us to do our business the way we do it," said Mr. Ashken.

Cliff Hoover, chief investment officer at Dreman Value Management in Jersey City, N.J., which owns Jarden stock, said "shareholders should care" about perks such as use of company aircraft. "If there is real abuse, we'd frown on it." Mr. Hoover said that given Jarden's position as a ski maker, many flights to Aspen weren't necessarily inappropriate, but "would cause you to take a second look."

Write to Mark Maremont at mark.maremont@wsj.com and Tom McGinty at tom.mcginty@wsj.com