Private flight bill to banish asylum seekers
TAXPAYERS are being landed with a £9million bill to fly home foreign crooks and failed asylum seekers on private jets.
The ‘con air’ flights cost an average of £5,263 for every passenger — or TWICE the price of a first-class ticket.
Astonished ... MP Charlie Elphicke
Ministers say the secretive flights, which do not show up on departure screens, are “cost-effective”. But The Sun has discovered that first-class fares to many of the destinations would cost HALF.
The UK Border Agency has recently hired planes to deport people to Iraq, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Jamaica and Nigeria.
We found one-way first-class tickets available in April for £1,937 to Iraq, £2,382.16 to Sri Lanka, £2,809.26 to Afghanistan, £3,530.05 to Jamaica and £3,862.81 to Nigeria. Economy tickets were under £425.
Figures obtained by Freedom of Information requests and Parliamentary questions also revealed just 45 crooks and asylum seekers travelled on each flight in 2011-12.
Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, who unearthed some of the figures, said: “People will be astonished that it costs more than £5,000 to kick out failed asylum seekers or foreign criminals.”
Immigration Minister Mark Harper blamed the rising cost of air travel and more long-haul flights.
And a UK Border Agency spokesman insisted: “Charter flights are vital to ensuring we remove foreign criminals and individuals who refuse to leave the UK voluntarily.”
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