It was an early start to make Rishi Sunak’s plane to the NATO summit in Lithuania: my alarm went off at 3.30am.
A shower, one half mug of Yorkshire Tea and a final check my passport was in my bag and I was ready.
Bleary-eyed and clutching my mobile phones, my black North Face backpack slung over my right shoulder, trailing my overnight Tripp case behind me and my dark blue Charles Tyrwhitt Super 120s suit jacket tucked into the crook of my arm, I climbed into the rear passenger-side seat of the black Volkswagen Sharan taxi at 4.15am.
I logged onto my silver MacBook Air, tethered to my Apple iPhone for a WiFi connection and read the papers online as we zoomed clockwise round the M25 and north up the M11 while the early-morning drizzle threw up motorway spray and the heavy cloud obscured the sunrise.
Seventy-one minutes and £95 later, I strode into the private terminal at Stansted Airport. A couple of enthusiastic colleagues from the press corps were already there, eyes fixed to their mobile phones and eager for coffee.
Over the next 30 minutes more reporters, No10 staff and security officers arrived before we checked in, were handed our boarding passes and went through security for Royal Air Force flight KRF69 to Vilnius. This is exactly the same as at a normal airport but without the perfume, vodka and giant Toblerone duty free shops, the queues, screaming children or drunk holidaymakers.
We were escorted to a shuttle bus for the 20-second drive across the apron to the RAF Voyager. The Airbus A330 is decked out in “Global Britain” livery because Boris Johnson didn’t like the military grey that came as a standard, what with it being an air-to-air refuelling tanker designed to top-up fighter jets at 20,000ft above war zones.
That paint job only cost you and me £900,000, which some doubt was money well spent. This is the biggest of the three Government aircraft available to the Prime Minister. He and No10 staff prefer the Airbus A321 leased from Titan Airways because it has WiFi. I’ve always preferred the Voyager: it feels more important to fly with His Majesty’s Royal Air Force and, while the seats are less comfortable and it’s no different from your average holiday jet, you get more space simply because it’s so big.
In the two-seat, four-seat, two-seat configuration, you often have a row to yourself - crucial for being able to spread out your laptop, iPad, two mobile phones, notepad, pens, dictaphone, water bottle and, on some flights, a beer, gin and tonic and sour cream and chive pretzels.
Broadcast media belt in their TV equipment while print snappers carefully place their cameras on the next seat. I made myself comfortable in A30, a portside window spot behind the wing, and waited until the last minute before folding away my laptop. Within moments of the PM’s convoy - led by a Volvo 4x4, Sunak next in his new black Audi limousine and with three Land Rovers following - sweeping onto the apron, we were ready for take off.
The plane taxied, stood at the side of the runway while a Ryanair holiday flight landed, and then took up its final position at the top of the runway before roaring down the Tarmac, lifting into the Essex gloom. Soon we were above the clouds, among the blue sky and, where the cloud floor broke, looking down on the English countryside before heading out over the North Sea.
As soon as the seatbelt signs went off, reporters gathered to discuss what questions we would fire at Rishi Sunak. One of the great privileges of travelling with the Prime Minister is The Huddle. This is where every journalist flying with the Premier huddles around the PM - sometimes to the visible discomfort of their bodyguards - and can ask a question about anything we want.
Usually, between a third and a half of the questions are focused on the trip - in this case, the NATO summit and the war in Ukraine - and the rest a mixture of topics depending on what is currently in the news. Sometimes a reporter will ask about a campaign specific to their paper. I have been known to use my one question on free TV licences for over-75s and the Mirror’s fight to Save Our Steel.
We don’t want to waste a single inquiry so we confer in advance to squeeze every drop of information from the PM so we can impart it to you, our readers. To a certain extent this is hit and miss. A PM can bite on one question when you’re not expecting it or can miss a completely open goal presented to them by a “friendly” publication.
I will spare the name of the PM who was asked about something we were told they wanted to discuss because they had a good story to tell only for them to suspect the question was a trick and dodge it. Their press secretary later had to be summoned to the back of the plane so it could be explained that no, it wasn’t a trick and please could we have some words from the PM about the positive news story.
Everyone wants The Huddle to happen early in the flight: journalists so we can get on with writing up, PMs so they can get on with business they deem (often rightly) more important, officials and protection officers because it makes them nervous and the cabin crew so they can serve food and drinks. We had to wait an hour into the sortie for Sunak, but then he surprised us all by being at “the bar” - this is where The Huddle takes place on the Voyager - before we were. Literally unprecedented - and he also revealed it was his first trip on this particular aircraft.
We once had to wait more than 10 minutes for Theresa May to arrive, which when you’re jostling for position, trying to keep your balance in a 500mph, 28,000ft cruise amid occasional turbulence, can feel like a long time. Turns out Sunak - slim-fit white shirt, buttons not cufflinks, skinny dark red tie and no jacket - was so eager because he hadn’t eaten.
“I haven’t had breakfast yet, let’s go,” he smiled as we thrust our phones and dictaphones in front of him.
Clutching his milky tea in a Union Flag mug, the PM fielded questions on Ukraine, NATO, tax cuts, public sector pay rises, the BBC row, electric vehicles, Channel migrants in small boats, next week’s by-elections for 27 minutes.
Unlike some other leaders, he didn’t even rush off at the end. When he did finally depart, the travelling pack spent another five minutes working out what stories we had, what the “embargoes” - when a story can be published online - should be on each piece and how we were going to swap quotes mid-air when we didn’t have WiFi.
Most importantly, how long until breakfast? Well the RAF’s airborne catering team did not disappoint when it came to mealtime. As with a normal flight, the VIPs at the front got served first and then it was our turn. A warm croissant, a cooked breakfast, a decent cup of tea and some lovely apple juice were all gratefully received.
I was so hungry I even broke my rule about not eating an egg unless it’s freshly cooked (I suppose it was a block of scrambled egg, it tasted fine) and the healthy granola yoghurty thing that I wouldn’t normally bother with. (Can you eat that petal thing? I did.) My only complaint was the RAF served UNSALTED BUTTER, the very existence of which should, in my view, be questioned.
Then it was writing up time, where I suffered an unfortunate mishap of losing my copy. I thought I touched on a solution to write in draft emails and all was going well until, on landing, my phone once again tethered to my laptop, logged me out of my emails and all my glorious copy was lost to the ether. As soon as I was relaxed enough to look up again after having to redo all my work, I remembered one of the best aspects of travelling with the PM to a major international summit - all the leaders’ planes.
Yes, there 200 yards was the US President’s Air Force One while dotted around were jets on which PMs and Premiers from across the alliance had flown into Lithuania. For a self-confessed - no, self-proclaimed - #avgeek this is one of the best parts of the job. I hope Sunak enjoyed it as much as I did.
