Four unique things about travelling abroad with a prime minister - BBC

By Chris Mason

Political editor, BBC News

This week I've been on a visit to the US with Rishi Sunak. Like all prime ministerial trips abroad, it wasn't exactly typical.

Here are four things that make travelling with the prime minister a unique experience.

1) You don't need a ticket and you won't see a baggage belt

For years the debate raged. Was it legitimate for the prime minister to have a plane they could call their own?

The issue made headlines during Tony Blair's premiership - when, inevitably, the prospect of such a thing was called Blair Force One. In 2006, a plan was announced. But in 2008, when Gordon Brown was prime minister, it was scrapped.

Is a private jet ostentatious? Does it help with the practicalities of being a frequently flying leader? Does it project an image of the UK abroad that you wouldn't get turning up on a chartered plane?

For now at least, the debate is over: the prime minister does have access to his own plane. And I type these words sitting on it, somewhere over the Atlantic.

It is an Airbus A321, with a union flag on the tail fin, and "United Kingdom" written down the side.

When you fly on this thing, it is rather different from rolling up at the airport to go on holiday. We leave from a private terminal, we often don't get a boarding pass and usually we take all of our baggage on with us - for a reason I'll get to shortly.

But meanwhile…

2) There is no in-flight entertainment - at least of the conventional variety

You might imagine, in a private jet, the entertainment system would be something else.

There is WiFi, so the prime minister and his team can stay connected and work efficiently, which is something they value. And it helps us reporters too.

On the plane, there are none of those little screens you get in the back of the seat in front of you on some flights, packed with films and playlists and maps showing precisely where you are over the ocean. Instead, we often have what is called a "huddle".

A huddle involves the prime minister coming to the back of the plane, where reporters crowd around him, and each ask him a question.

This is how it works: all the reporters get together beforehand, in the airport, to work out what we are going to ask, in what order, to ensure we cover a range of topics.

The conversation is "on the record" - to use the jargon - meaning we can quote the words and attribute them to the prime minister. But the huddle is not recorded for television or radio.

A round of on-camera interviews with the prime minister tends to happen later in the trip. Each broadcaster is assigned a strictly agreed amount of time - often seven minutes - to attempt to find things out, hold the government to account and test its arguments.

Interviewing any prime minister is a huge privilege and responsibility: working on your behalf, trying to ask the questions you want asking. I will always ask the brilliant producer I am working with to stand just out of shot counting down the minutes I have left on their fingers.

Journalistically, there is a tension on these trips: we are close to the prime minister and his team throughout. This is useful, in understanding what they are doing and what motivates their decisions. But instinctively reporters want to be detached, independent and disinterested, and being in what can feel like a bubble feels odd in that context.

Oh, and if we are going somewhere on a long-haul flight - for example Indonesia, Japan or the west coast of America, as we've have recently - we end up having to stop to refuel.

And so those trips involved landing in Dubai, Muscat, Almaty and Washington, hanging around for an hour or so, and then taking off again.

3) You leave and arrive from private terminals or military airfields

There aren't huge queues to check in. Or any queues at all.

There are comfy settees to sit on, there is loads of natural light and a free coffee machine. To say it feels different from when you head off on a family holiday with the kids is to put it gently. Mind you, I don't take laptops, a tripod, and no end of other broadcasting kit with me on holiday either.

Recently, we flew back into Luton Airport in the middle of the night and pulled up at a private terminal. Past the entrance to what was described as the "VVIP lounge" (I couldn't see in, I'm afraid) was a glass cabinet proffering stuff from Harrods, including a collection of pink teddies complete with "recycled polyester filling".

A large rectangular steel clock hung on the wall. "We commissioned this clock from Beaumont flying art," read the inscription. Also on the wall, a colossal screen, pitching the merits of executive private jets, the kind that only carry a handful of passengers. "15 hours of peaceful luxury!" is how they describe the flight on offer.

4) You get to travel in motorcades

When the prime minister's plane lands abroad, a diplomatic ritual begins. As the plane pulls up, a smiling delegation greets us.

One of the first people off the plane is the camera journalist assigned to film the prime minister's arrival on behalf of all the broadcasters. There might be a red carpet. There are almost always flags.

The UK ambassador to wherever we are will be there at the bottom of the plane steps. Maybe even some sort of performance will be offered by the hosts - at Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport last autumn, it was a troupe of traditional dancers.

And while the prime minister is getting off via the front set of steps, the rest of us are piling off at the back and getting into a seemingly never-ending line of minibuses waiting on the tarmac.

A photographer takes pictures from a car

There's no time to wait for a bag in the hold. That's why we take them onto the plane with us.

In next to no time, the motorcade is moving - and moving fast. Police outriders swarm all around us, and junctions are closed, so we can race through.

On the motorway, the fast lane is (temporarily) closed so we can zip by. Passers by can be lining the streets, sometimes, to grab pictures.

On a recent trip to Japan, the press minibus wasn't the nippiest, its engine squealing to keep up with the slick Mercedes of the prime minister a dozen or so vehicles ahead.