Despite the car executives, the corporate jet market is still booming, reports Associated Press with financial firms that received billions in bailout dollars still owning and operating fleets. But, as the report says, some are starting to scale back.

Citigroup still has four jets and a helicopter but its executives are being encouraged to "rough it" and fly commercial, Morgan Stanley still has two jets with chief executive John Mack using them for "security reasons", JP Morgan's CEO Jamie Dimon has knocked up $211,182 of personal trips in 2007, Bank of America owns nine planes, despite taking $15 billion in bailout money, courtesy of the US taxpayer, and Wells Fargo has one jet that's ostensibly "strictly for business purposes".

Under SEC rules, publicly held companies need to disclose executives' personal use of corporate aircraft but it's a fuzzy area. What happens if you are on a personal trip and make a work call?

Ed Bolen, president and CEO of the National Business Aviation Association manages to defend the use of jets, claiming that 85% of companies that use business aircraft are small and mid-size, and passengers usually are mid-level employees. Still, it's not a good look in these straitened times. As this Post-Standard editorial points out, Goldman Sachs has been able to get by without jets for the past decade.

And there are signs that the corporate jet market could be in big trouble. As the New York Times reports, demand for jets has fallen. And in an era when companies are sacking people, and executives are sensitive to public scrutiny, we can expect the corporate jet market to stay down for some time.