Air transport of the British royal family and government

Air transport of the British royal family and government is provided, depending on the circumstances and availability, by a variety of military and civilian operators.

When the Prince ascended to the throne in 1936 as Edward VIII, The King's Flight was formed as the world's first head of state aircraft unit.

[1] This unit initially used the King's own de Havilland Dragon Rapide, commanded by the prince's personal pilot, Edward 'Mouse' Fielden, who continued to lead the flight before and after the war.

When Nevil Shute Norway of Airspeed queried the need for a steward on flights of up to two or three hours, he was told by the Captain of the Flight, Wing Commander Fielden "of the fatigue that royal personages must endure...of radiant people who had opened a Town Hall and shaken a thousand hands...collapsing in a coma of fatigue directly the door was shut, grey faced and utterly exhausted".

[4] The outbreak of World War II in 1939 led to the replacement of the Envoy III with an armed Lockheed Hudson.

[5] The King's Flight was reformed on 1 May 1946 at RAF Benson with a single aircraft, a de Havilland Dominie and, soon after, with four Vickers Viking C.2.

[6] As the Queen's Flight from 1952, the unit operated a variety of aircraft for the transport and pilot training of members of the royal family, including Vickers Viking, Avro York, de Havilland Heron and Devon, Westland Whirlwind, Westland Wessex HCC.4, Douglas Dakota (for the Royal Visit to Nepal in 1960), de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk, Beagle Basset, and Hawker Siddeley Andover aircraft.

[7] In 1983, the Royal Air Force leased two BAe 146 aircraft to assess their suitability as replacements for The Queen's Flight's Andovers.

[9] This policy reduced the charge per hour to the royal travel grant-in-aid for flying in an RAF jet radically.

Occasionally, the British Airways supersonic Concorde was used to transport the prime minister and royal family, particularly to international conferences abroad.

Travel on 32 Squadron aircraft is recommended where it is more cost-effective than using commercial air transport, or where security considerations dictate that special flights should be used.

[citation needed] Proposals to provide a new dedicated VIP transport aircraft, for governmental or royal use, were first mooted in 1998.

[19][20] The aircraft, the RAF VIP Voyager, retained the standard Royal Air Force grey livery and continued its primary military duties when not in use by the government.

[21] Its first use as a VIP transport was on 8 July 2016, when it was used to take government ministers from London Heathrow airport to the 2016 NATO conference in Warsaw, Poland.

[22] In June 2020, the aircraft was repainted in white with gold lettering with the Union Jack on its tail fin at a cost of £900,000.

The Cabinet Office had called for an aircraft with at least 30 and preferably 50 fully 'lie-flat' seats, meeting areas, high-speed Internet connection, and secure weapons storage.

[36] From 1998 to 2009, it used a single maroon Sikorsky S-76C+ twin-engine helicopter, registered G-XXEA[37][38] in honour of G-AEXX, the Airspeed Envoy that flew in the King's Flight.

[56] The 1999 declaration that the principal purpose of 32 Squadron was to provide communications and logistical support to military operations reduced the charge per hour to the royal travel grant-in-aid for flying in an RAF jet, because now only the variable costs of the flight were expensed to the royal travel budget.

[citation needed] Under these higher prices, the royal family flew only twice on military jets in financial year 2010–2011.

[57] Two of the most expensive charters were for visits to South America in March 2009 (£660,594) for a tour related to the Prince's ecological concerns, and a trip to Japan and Indonesia in October and November 2008 that cost £665,674.

[58] Between 12 and 16 June 2010, Charles and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall took a four-day short break to their home in Balmoral, Scotland.

[59] Prince Charles's choice of chartering an Airbus A319 that seats 29 people for a tour in 2009 to raise environmental awareness was criticised for its carbon footprint.