Standard practice

Stuff reports:

However this morning the Office of the Clerk provided a details on the trip which suggested that the MPs who took their partners have downgraded to economy to pay for an additional passenger.

A fact sheet on the delegation said MPs were each allowed one return business class ticket.

“Members may use the amount of one business class return airfare to enable their spouses to accompany them, eg, they may downgrade their airfares to premium economy or economy class,” the Office of the Clerk wrote.

“In this respect, there is no additional cost associated with members spouses or partners accompanying them than if the member had travelled alone.”

The original story on this made it look like both MPs and spouses were getting business class travel. It was very misleading.

It is pretty standard practice that if someone is entitled to travel business class, to allow them to choose two lower cost airfares instead. In fact this often is cheaper than one business class fare.