Target’s Gulfstream hops across the runway the week of Q1 earnings

Target Corporation’s Gulfstream G280, tail number N484EM, departed Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport on June 5, 2026, and returned to the same airport three minutes later, having climbed no higher than 2,725 feet at a top speed of 198 knots. The brief flight—essentially a maintenance or crew positioning hop—kept the aircraft close to Target’s home base.

The same week, Target Corporation reported first-quarter earnings that topped expectations, with same-store sales rising 5.6 percent—the retailer’s first increase in that key metric in five quarters, per a CNBC report on May 20, 2026. New chief executive Michael Fiddelke, who succeeded Brian Cornell in February, used the earnings call to double Target’s annual sales growth forecast while cautioning that “we will not confuse this progress with potential.”

This local flight follows a pattern of longer business trips by Target’s three-aircraft fleet. In the days before, the same Gulfstream flew from Waterloo, Iowa, and from a point near Rochester, Minnesota, back to Minneapolis—movements that echo the corporation’s frequent shuttles between its headquarters and regional hubs for board meetings and strategic planning.