It should not come as any surprise, but Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) announced today that August saw an industry wide increase in auto sales.

Of course, the increase in sales can be attributed to the highly popular "cash for clunkers" program that brought auto buyers out in huge numbers. The August increase is the first time auto sales have moved higher in over 2 years.

One of Ford Motor Co.'s (NYSE: F) top executives is going to start to pay the price of the struggling automaker's inability to turn around profitability by giving up one of his main perks ... free weekend trips on the company's corporate jet.

Mark Fields, the company's head of operations in the Americas, has recently been criticized for using Ford's corporate jets to fly from Detroit home to Florida, to visit his family on the weekends. While executives at all large companies are usually given access too all sorts of benefits from their positions, the situation at Ford seems to be slightly different, and this time it looks like the executive made the right decision.

Ford has been closing plants and slashing jobs at a feverish pitch over the last year, in what it hopes will allow the company to be more competitive. This led many to question the ethics behind granting one of the top executive the luxury of weekly trips on the corporate jet while so many of the blue-collar workforce were being urged to take early retirement or buy out packages. In January of 2006, Fields was responsible for promoting a plan to close 14 Ford plants by 2012.