UK PM Sunak’s £500k in Private Jet Trips Defended by Downing Street amidst Opposition Criticism

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has faced criticism from the opposition for spending nearly £500,000 of taxpayers’ money on private jet travel in just over a week in 2022. The data was shared in a Cabinet Office document which detailed Sunak’s travel in the third quarter of 2022. The report showed that the Prime Minister spent £108,000 on private jet travel to and from the Cop27 summit in Egypt, followed by a round trip to Bali for the G20 summit costing over £340,000, a £62,000 day trip to visit troops in Latvia and Estonia, and a private jet to attend a meeting in Prague costing nearly £40,000. The British PM’s office occasionally has access to an RAF Voyager aircraft designed for passenger travel, but all of the flights mentioned in the report were conducted on a chartered Airbus A321 from Titan Airways, which was being operated on behalf of the UK government. The costs incurred by the officials who accompanied him on the trips were not included in the document. Downing Street defended Sunak’s use of private jet travel, stating that it is necessary for holding vital meetings with world leaders during bilateral visits and summits to discuss issues of international importance.