Flying Into A Storm - Why Government Jets Are Value For Money

The Foreign Secretary is coming under intense scrutiny for allegedly spending £500,000 on the use of a private jet to travel to Australia rather than travelling by commercial airlines. This has been attacked as a waste of money, when allegedly it could have been done more cheaply by commercial airlines. Is this a reasonable view, or is it more complex than this?

Practically every government on the planet maintains some form of VIP transport aircraft to move Ministers and their aides on official business trips. These vary in size and scale, but the reality of Government business is that it can be useful to have access to a discrete ‘in-house’ air transport capability to move staff at short notice to talks around the world.

The RAF Voyager is both VVIP transport and AAR Tanker - Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

  

The UK approach to ministerial air transport is twofold. It has traditionally made use of commercial airlines for ministerial travel – it is common to see Ministers travelling to and from locations around Europe on civilian airlines to meetings where that makes the most sense to do so (particularly for a day or overnight visit).

Sometimes though it makes less sense to do this – for example some destinations may only have one flight every few days (particularly at the moment with COVID aviation recovery). Others may have a small number of flights, without many seats available, or fly at times that are remarkably inconvenient.

This poses a dilemma for travel planners and Ministerial offices. Is it better to look for ways to secure value for money, getting the cheapest possible flights, or is the time of your Minister and their availability to do their job more important?

Ministers are extremely busy and their days are usually fully occupied long outside what most people consider to be normal working hours. Sending a Minister to travel, particularly one who works on highly sensitive issues of national security policy means trying to decide how much they can be out of contact with their department for travel purposes, and not doing the job they are paid to do.

While a day trip to Brussels can easily be done, it may be a big ask to send a Minister to the Far East for a sustained period, particularly at a time of global tension. As an example, the best possible ‘value for money’ outcome for flying to Sydney next week in business class involves 28hrs of travel each way, going via three different flights and comes in at roughly £5000 per passenger on a fixed itinerary bought by a travel agency.

In practical terms this means sending the whole party through multiple countries, where if one flight is missed due to delays, this can have serious consequences for the whole trip’s itinerary. There is a wider issue of staying in contact – for example, is it safe to access British Government IT in some countries, particularly ones where there may be a genuine threat to IT security from highly capable third-party adversaries.

There will be those who would argue that there is no need for this sort of meeting anyway, particularly in an era of Zoom and video calling. Why go around the world for a party when you can just have everyone dial in to watch you blow out the candles on your Colin the Caterpillar cake? The problem is that while video calling is useful to sustain relationships that already exist, it also isn’t a good way of building and maintaining them.

So much of politics and international relations is about discrete face to face meetings, quiet conversations in secluded places and having a private moment to seize up the other person, rely on body language and physical presence and use this to build a link, deliver a message or deepen a relationship. We are social animals by nature, and one of the reasons why the UK enjoys strong diplomatic relations is, in part, because as a nation we are keen to send people to meet with their peers. There is no substitute for face to face links and meetings, and getting stuff done together, not at a distance. Sometimes you need to be in the room to have a say.

Where commercial airlines are not a credible option then use of Government aircraft remains a credible option. The UK government has settled on a strategy of three different types of aircraft provision for different VIP transport needs.

The RAF has operated the BAE146 which has been used for many years to provide VIP transport services out of RAF Northolt. Now at the end of its career, the aircraft is due to be replaced by the MOD, but no details are yet available on what this solution looks like, or what aircraft will be acquired.

The RAF Voyager force also has an aircraft internally configured to function as a long-haul carrier for large delegations. This jet has been used in a variety of trips where it can carry VVIP passengers on trips, to enable them to take part in visits around the world. This is a particularly useful capability when you are travelling a very long way, or taking a large delegation with you, as it means the entire party (which may include civil servants, press, armed police protection officers and wider delegation members) can travel on a single aircraft over which the party has complete control.

If you are moving 50-100 people then being able to move them and check them in speedily, via non-commercial aviation facilities, or ensure everyone is on the same jet at the same time is an incredibly powerful benefit. It means that you are not at risk of being delayed due to a commercial flight going wrong, or people being offloaded due to overbooking, or having issues with luggage being lost. This may sound minor, but you don’t want to run the risks.

There are also wider benefits that come from having a military airframe with certain additional levels of secure communication and protection that means it can, at times, be helpful to send a Voyager into more challenging airspace rather than a civilian aircraft.

Finally, there are wider benefits to having your own aircraft with you – a good example of this is the way that the RAF Voyager took part in a flypast in Greece, to help show British military presence in the Greek bicentenary celebration – a nice way to show the UK commitment to friends and allies.

This jet also offers wider value as when not being used as a VVIP transport, it is regularly used as an air-air refuelling tanker to support NATO air operations, including by the RAF to monitor activity near the UK.

The final option is to use a chartered A321 which is currently operated by Titan Airways. This aircraft was brought into service in 2020, as part of a cross government contract to deliver ministerial and VIP air transport on a multi-year contract.

This aircraft is on a multi-year charter and available to HMG users to support travel around the world as required. The contract as publicly available notes that the service should be available for a guaranteed minimum of 50hrs per month / 600hrs per year flying time with further time available as required.

The total public value of this service, if used to its maximum capacity is stated as being £75m for five years, but in reality, it is likely to be lower than this (although public figures have not been released on its low-end likely costing).  

What this means is that for Ministerial visits, the aircraft is available and has already been paid for, and not chartered specifically for the trip. It is an important distinction to make, and immediately calls into credibility the claim of £500k spending just for the charter, as this is not new money being spent, but previously budgeted T&S funding.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

Why would it make sense to use this option over commercial airlines? Firstly, we do not know what availability was like for seats to Sydney on the dates of the visit, or for the planned return dates, and how much a flexible ticket would have cost (on assumption that events may have required last minute changes to flight schedules).

At the moment, for next week (2-5 Feb) the cheapest flight options, using a variety of carriers and routes is coming in at about £4000. A BA ticket using Qatar Airways is £7000 on a fixed ticket. A fully flexible ticket is about £6000 each way – so roughly £12000 return per person – of course that’s on current ticket availability, so it may well get more expensive as more people book these tickets.

What needs to be asked is how many people went on the trip, and what was commercial availability like for the flight dates? The reason this is important is that if you were looking to take a delegation of 10-20 people, you are suddenly paying up to a quarter of a million pound in airfares to fly commercially, if not more.

Comparisons are being made between the MOD and FCDO approach, noting another Minister did fly commercial. This does not consider availability of seats, size of delegation, or whether it was possible to get everyone on the same set of flights, and what their wider diaries were like. What works for one Ministers diary is not always going to work for others.

The wider picture to consider is how much more flexibility does using the contracted jet available for HMG use give you? It appears to have stopped twice en-route, which provides opportunities for bilateral meetings that the Foreign Sec could have had with local governments (something that has regularly happened in the past), helping deliver broader government policy goals.

It also provides more flexibility – noting that the world is an uncertain place, the ability to be able to  move people at speed, and enable them the chance to retain access to communications while in the air is crucial. In a time of tense international relations, do you want your principal Minister for foreign affairs out of the loop, or trying to hold sensitive discussions and send emails on an insecure wifi link on a random foreign airline where she could be overheard by anyone? Or do you want a small secure sovereign platform where you can conduct the business of state as required without these concerns?

Finally with the reduced levels of aviation capacity at present due to COVID recovery, it may have been difficult to get people tickets on all the flights to arrive in time. This would mean staff flying out earlier than required, or via longer and more expensive routings to ensure they could be present. We should not assume the commercial capacity existed to get the full delegation, to its destination at the right time given routes being flown right now.

There are arguably two specific concerns with the way that this issue has been reported. The first is the way that the story has been dominated by the figure “£500k” as if this is the amount of money that has been spent. The problem is that this is an utterly false figure.

It may be the case that an aviation broker has stated that it would cost £500k to lease a jet at short notice to fly to Australia. But that is like saying that the RRP of a car on a website is the price that people pay for their car, whereas its usually a lot less!

What has happened here is that a media wide story has emerged claiming that £500k has been spent, when in fact it almost certainly has not. No attention has been paid to the fact that the jet has been on charter, is paid for and is ready for use precisely for this sort of event – a far better question would have been if a large delegation had flown to Australia on commercial air as to why they didn’t use a jet that HMG had already paid for.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

The story also reflects the wider and uniquely British attitude that official travel is a bad thing, no matter how it is done or how it is paid for. The UK seems to be alone in the way that people regard using official aircraft for official travel as a ‘bad thing’.

If the trip had gone entirely commercially, then you can imagine the identical outrage in the press when it became clear how much this would have cost, and how much had been spent on hotels and subsistence. For example, if they had flown commercial airlines, would they have needed more meals or extra nights in hotels to wait for flights with availability? “Civil Servants live it up in Sidney while waiting for Minister” is the sort of red meat headline that tabloids love.

What too is the wider impact of having civil servants and Ministers tied up in airports unable to do their job because they are waiting to fly? Given the perpetual and nonsensical hysteria generated over the idea of civil servants working from home in the media, one can only imagine the outrage they would try to spin up at the idea of civil servants ‘living it up’ in airport lounges for days when they could have taken a perfectly good and already paid for Ministerial jet and gotten there much faster.

Alternatively, we could see an attack for flying in an aircraft with flat-bed seats when the delegation could instead have flown economy at a fraction of the price. Let’s ignore that flying to Australia tends to wipe people out physically, and then send a jet lagged and utterly fatigued delegation into strategic talks having not properly rested for a couple of days, and then wonder why they failed to properly represent the UK interests abroad.

Whatever option is chosen, there is a way for people to find ways to board the outrage aircraft. As a country we sometimes seem to be desperate to self-flagellate ourselves and attack people for having the audacity to do whatever option they take, because its easier to say “why didn’t’ you do X” than it is to say “there were probably good reasons why you did X”.

What has happened is that a jet that has been paid for has been used for the purpose that it was intended. The jet appears to have been away for approximately 3 full days, noting time zone shifts (leaving London late on 19 Jan, arriving 20 Jan, conducting business for two days, then returning after a day in Adelaide on 21 Jan to the UK, landing at lunchtime on 23 Jan.

The cost per day of the provision of the Titan aircraft, based on publicly available figures is £41,000. The total cost for this trip by this measure would have been around £123,000.

It has been suggested that 15 people were on the jet, and this included a full day in Adelaide (which would work out at almost £500 per person in business flying Sydney to Adelaide as a one-way fare at present). Assuming they had a flexible ticket (around £11000 per person), this gives us a total cost using commercial air of approximately £172,500 for the Foreign Secretary and her party to travel to Australia on the same route. In other words, taking the Ministerial Jet saved the taxpayer approximately £50,000 compared to flying commercially on the same route.

Ultimately what this boils down to is asking is it true that the British Government spent £500k chartering a jet to take the Foreign Secretary to Australia. The answer is simple – no it is not.