Pentagon to stop fuel subsidy for Google's private jets

According to the report of The Wall Street Journal, the US Department of Defense recently stated that it would no longer provide fuel subsidies for Google's private jets. This means that in the future, Google's private jets will no longer be able to purchase discounted fuel.

A Pentagon spokesperson said that Google and the US Department of Defense reached an agreement on fuel subsidies in 2007, which ended on August 31 this year. Another party involved in the agreement, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), now suggests that the Pentagon does not need to renew the contract with Google.

US Senator Charles Grassley previously pointed out in a letter that after investigation, the US Department of Defense and NASA believed that the founders of Google violated the terms of the agreement when using the company's private jets, using these subsidized fuels in some non-governmental flights.

The reason why Google's private jets could enjoy fuel subsidies is mainly due to an agreement reached with NASA. NASA's Ames Research Center is located at Moffett Federal Airfield, which was once part of a US Navy base. The airfield is only 3 miles away from Google's Mountain View headquarters, making it very convenient for Google's private jets to take off and land.

Moffett Field is usually closed to most non-governmental flights. In 2007, NASA reached an agreement with H211 LLC, allowing the latter to land planes at Moffett Field. The owner of H211 LLC is officially Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt, the founders of Google. It is understood that H211 needs to store 7 aircraft and two helicopters at Moffett Field and will pay an annual lease fee of $1.3 million. Meanwhile, Google also rents some areas of Moffett Field for office use.

Kenneth Ambrose, an executive of H211, said that according to the initial agreement signed with NASA, in some collaborative flight projects between Google and NASA, H211 was allowed to purchase fuel at Moffett Field below market price. Since 2009, H211 has purchased 2.3 million gallons of fuel from Moffett Field, averaging $3.19 per gallon, while the current average price of aviation fuel in the United States is $4.35 per gallon.

Although the agreement clearly stipulated that subsidized fuels could only be used in flights related to government department activities, records from the Federal Aviation Administration showed that the vast majority of H211's flights had no relation to NASA, leading NASA to decide not to renew the contract with Google.

A spokesperson for Google has not yet commented on this matter.