LONDON, Oct. 31 -- Queen Elizabeth II broke with tradition by taking a regular commercial airliner to New Zealand, spending the 25- hour trip in a specially equipped first-class compartment separated by a security barrier from regular fare-paying passengers. The trip was believed to be the first by a British monarch on a commercial flight. The queen, who is traveling to New Zealand on an official visit as the island nation's head of state to attend the Commonwealth summit, was the only passenger in first class on Air New Zealand flight NZ1 that left London Monday afternoon on the 25-hour journey. She had three cabin stewards at her disposal, and the compartment had been fitted with a special bed and a table and chairs. Twenty-six of the queen's staff flew in business class, and there were 384 regular fare-paying customers in economy class, on the other side of a special security barrier. Passengers went through tight security, and each was given a commemorative pen, special New Zealand stamps, free refreshments and a letter explaining the 'historic' nature of the flight. The queen was not required to go through normal security or check-in procedures, and was whisked straight onto the plane after the other passengers had boarded. The decision to take a scheduled commercial flight rather than use a special royal plane was apparently made to save money for the government of New Zealand, which is paying for the trip. Even after reserving the entire first-class and business-class compartments, the trip will cost less than half the estimated 600,000 pound ($942,000) of a special flight, TheDaily Telegraph said.
The security barrier prevented any mingling between the regular and royal passengers, but a Telegraph reporter on the flight said parents could be heard telling their children to be quiet so they would not wake the queen.
