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BULLPEN BRIEF: Tracking Private Jet Travel

July 26, 2023 | Blog Post
Bullpen Brief

This week, Insider reported “the world’s billionaires … are going to great lengths to hide their private flights.” Despite these efforts, there are several tools that Bullpen’s Research Practice uses to identify and access records about private aircraft, their owners, and flight histories, including SEC filings and databases such as FlightAware and ADS-B Exchange.

These resources have frequently been used by the media and even anonymous Twitter accounts to track the jet travel of business leaders including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates, as well as political figures such as Donald Trump, John Kerry, and Bernie Sanders.

Bullpen’s Research Practice has incorporated all of these flight tracking resources into the Research Stack – our major investment in some 200-plus datasets and subscription-based resources that help provide unparalleled insights for our clients. Every day, these tools are utilized in our due diligence and analysis work.

The following selection of headlines demonstrates the importance of incorporating these valuable insights into communications and public affairs planning:

Bloomberg: Elon Musk Is So Busy His Private Jet Is Taking 13-Minute Flights

CNBC: Bill Gates On Why He’ll Carry On Using Private Jets And Campaigning On Climate Change

Financial Times: US Corporate Jet Spending Jumps As Executives Keep Pandemic-Era Perks

The Associated Press: Campaign Crunch Time Forces Progressives To Eye Private Jet

Monitoring private jet travel is only one small component of Bullpen’s research work, but it is a prime example of our commitment to uncovering every detail and mastering all datasets available to help advance our clients’ objectives.

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