William’s costly air journey to wedding

Jul 1 2008 by Ben Guy, The Journal

A ROYAL visit to a Borders wedding will cost the tax payer almost £20,000, it emerged yesterday.

In April The Journal reported how Prince William had landed a multi-million pound RAF Chinook helicopter in a field near Hexham while on his way to a university friend’s wedding in Kelso.

Now it has emerged that the cost of the four-hour flight to get to Northumberland was a total of £18,522. After arriving in Hexham the prince jumped into a waiting Range Rover before driving the rest of the way to the ceremony.

The flight was one of five trips made by the prince which attracted criticism in the media, and which carried a total tax payer cost of £50,000. In separate trips he flew the twin-rotored helicopter over his father’s Gloucestershire home, landed at the Reading home of his girlfriend Kate Middleton, flew over Sandringham and landed on the Isle of Wight.

The excursions were originally defended as legitimate training flights, with the outing to Hexham described as “general handling and low level” training. But the Ministry of Defence later admitted the trips had been a “naive” public relations disaster and a “collective error of judgment”.

The wedding, also attended by his brother Harry, was that of Iona Douglas-Home, who married banker Tom Hewitt. The bride is the granddaughter of 1960s Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and studied with William at St Andrews University.

The costs of the flights were revealed after a Freedom of Information request was made to the MoD. The flights came in for criticism as a waste of money at a time when the budget for the armed forces is stretched.

Prince William, an officer in the Household Cavalry Regiment, was on a four-month attachment with the RAF as part of a “familiarisation” exercise to understand all the military services as he will head the armed forces on becoming king. He spent 10 days learning how to fly a Chinook and was awarded his wings by his father in a ceremony at RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire.

A spokesman for the MoD said: “All flights undertaken by Flying Officer Wales were a legitimate part of his RAF training. In retrospect, there was a degree of naivety in the planning of the training sorties that either allowed Flying Officer Wales to attend private functions or land and take off (20 seconds later) from a privately owned field.

“This should not detract from what was an extremely successful and valuable attachment for Flying Officer Wales.

“He displayed natural flying ability and was able to gain an invaluable insight into the roles and capabilities of a modern air force.”

Flight costs

THE cost of each of Prince William’s five "training" flights:

April 2

Flew helicopter over Prince Charles’ Highgrove home in Gloucestershire.

COST: £11,985

April 3

Landed helicopter on land belonging to his girlfriend Kate Middleton near Reading.

COST: £8,716

April 4

Uses helicopter to fly to Hexham before driving to Kelso wedding.

COST: £18,522

April 9

Flew helicopter over the Queen’s Sandringham home.

COST: £4,358

April 11

Flew helicopter to pre-wedding celebrations on the Isle of Wight.

COST: £8,716

Total cost of flights: £52,297