By James Bryce

IT’S not quite Topgun, but at least it will save some cash.

In a deal struck by the Ministry of Defence, soldiers are to be flown to and from Gibraltar by budget airline EasyJet as part of a cost cutting exercise.

British service personnel flying with the carrier will benefit from substantial discounts on excess baggage in a bid to compensate for the large amount of kit they are required to carry.

As well as Gib, the deal will see around 50,000 members of the Army, Navy and Air Force flown to and from destinations including Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Cyprus.

The deal will apply to all ranks, including generals, and ends a previous arrangement which involved personnel having to contact the ministry to make travel arrangements.

Lieutenant Colonel Mike Holmes, head of defence travel, said: “This new partnership represents an excellent opportunity to drive out more efficiencies through smarter procurement.

“The MoD is constantly seeking to identify new business initiatives that will help generate savings and offer better value for money to the customer. This new partnership is the first of its kind with any low cost carrier.”

An EasyJet spokesman added: “We now hope to secure travel deals with other government departments as well as with private sector companies.”

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7 COMMENTS

  1. .. I’m all for the Tax pounds getting saved, Commercial deals with all the competition there is, should be encouraged .. provided there are fixed periods at the end of which there is re bids. for even lower prices.. What was Ryan Air’s prices be like??
    Perhaps it would mean this contributed toward an “Easy (ier) War” for our wonderful service folks

  2. I still can’t work out why the MOD can’t do this cheaper. After all EasyJet must make a profit. And I remember many years go how Royal Navy people would fly back to the U.K. from
    Singapore on Singapore Airlines, not British Airways. And they went on the SIA equivalent of Club Class. That’s waste for you. I am not kidding. They told me.

    At least this EasyJet deal is better than the British diplomats who go around in foreign places in Land Rover type vehicles that are not British made. That’s a disgrace.

  3. Why the hell does the UK have soldiers in Cyprus, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Gibraltar anyway? When was the last armed uprising in the Gorbals? The army, not before time, is emptying Germany of the ridiculous number of personnel hitherto draining M.O.D. funds. It is surely time to extend this policy to all the other wastes of resources around the world.
    Oh, and scrap Trident too! And that idiotic, empty, plane-less aircraft carrier, that Liz just wasted a perfectly good bottle of Scotch on.

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