No doubt. Interestingly, this meeting didn't happen on a jet and probably predates the term "jet set", as the first jet airliner had only entered service the year before. The IBM salesman thinks it might have been a DC-6:
"I learned later that he would be sitting in his office in New York and he'd suddenly wonder how things were getting along in L.A. He would tell his secretary, "I'm going to L.A." He would go to the airport, just walk on a plane, and fly out without a shaving kit, pajamas or anything. Then he would take a look around and catch another plane back."
I doubt many company presidents are taking that sort of approach anymore.
I know of British Airways executives who flew from London to New York on Concorde only to attend meetings from which they returned again the same day without having left the airport.
I've done Heathrow -> Dulles -> meeting in Sterling, VA -> Dulles -> Heathrow same day. It's not fun, but it's also not that unusual, even without the Concorde.
UK -> US east coast works reasonably well that way, given that the flight is 5-6 hours, and 5 hour time difference, so you can get on a flight early morning from London, arrive early morning at the east coast, have your meeting and catch an evening flight back out which'll arrive back in the UK in the morning local time.
Granted, I'm not in the same boat as exec's, but I'm a student and have had dealings with people from other universities in the UK (I'm irish), and I have flown, met them in airport hotels, and flown home same day or first flight following morning.
It depends on the executive, but I would say it's not uncommon. Perhaps not on a lark, but because something pops up at the last minute. This portion of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography comes to mind:
> Early in his tenure, Cook was told of a problem with one of Apple's Chinese suppliers. "This is really bad", he said. "Someone should really be in China driving this." 30 minutes later he looked at an operations executive sitting at the table and unemotionally asked, "What are you still doing here?" The executive stood up, drove directly to San Francisco Airport, and bought a ticket to China.
http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/11299/107637/1/oh034rbs...
Interesting little note from that:
"I learned later that he would be sitting in his office in New York and he'd suddenly wonder how things were getting along in L.A. He would tell his secretary, "I'm going to L.A." He would go to the airport, just walk on a plane, and fly out without a shaving kit, pajamas or anything. Then he would take a look around and catch another plane back."
I doubt many company presidents are taking that sort of approach anymore.