The price is marked down but it hardly represents Everyday Value. One of Tesco’s corporate jets is up for sale for $34.95m (£22m), according to the sales brochure for the aircraft.
The document [pdf] depicts the luxury enjoyed by senior staff at the retailer, whose catchline is “every little helps”.
The Gulfstream G550, serial number 5176, seats 14 passengers in its Edelman beige leather seats. The fittings are finished in “maple burl gloss” and “antique bronze”.
The forward galley’s catering facilities have wine glasses for an in-flight tipple while the bathroom includes a shower and a vacuum lavatory. Inflight entertainment is provided by two DVD players.
The jet-set opulence, first reported in the Daily Mirror, is a far cry from the hard choices made by Tesco’s customers, stretched by falling real wages, and the chain’s battered reputation for supplying affordable food to the masses.
The plane, fitted with two Rolls-Royce engines, started flying in May 2008 and has completed 949 landings in 3,444 hours of flying. Assuming that Tesco bought it new, the plane was acquired during the regime of Sir Terry Leahy, who expanded the group into China, the US and other markets round the world before leaving in March 2011.
The asking price is less than a tenth of the £263m profit overstatement that has thrown Tesco into turmoil. In an effort to bring a sense of realism to the group, where first-half profits were nearly wiped out, new chief executive, Dave Lewis, has ordered the sale of all Tesco’s jets.
The most recent, a new $50m Gulfstream jet, arrived in the past few weeks and was meant to replace a 2008 model but Lewis put it up for sale immediately. Tesco has also wound up Kansas Transportation, the division that owns its fleet of private jets.
Kansas Transportation’s accounts shows Tesco spent £28.9m flying executives around the world in private planes between 2005 and 2012, the most recent annual accounts available.
Lewis, who joined from Unilever at the start of last month, has ordered top managers back to the shop floor and taken executives on a cut-price minibreak in Norfolk in an effort to put them back in touch with customers.
