Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Flew Commercial to the U.K.

As royal stans are already very aware, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle returned to the United Kingdom this weekend for their weirdly controversial slate of charitable appearances. While rich and famous people with notorious security concerns generally charter private planes for their cross-Atlantic travel (or just their 17-minute cross-part-of-California travel in some cases), Harry and Meghan reportedly booked seats on a commercial flight for the trip. You know, like full-on commoners.

This bit of news comes via Hello! magazine, which reported that Harry and Meghan “landed on Saturday morning after shunning the use of a private jet and flying commercial.” According to Hello!, Harry and Meghan’s two kids, Archie and Lilibet, did not appear to have accompanied them on their adventure in normaling.

Over the years, Harry and Meghan have come under scrutiny multiple times for their use of private planes, which many have decried as hypocritical since the Sussexes have publicly promoted environmental causes and Harry even has a travel sustainability project called Travalyst.

FWIW, in a 2019 speech announcing Travalyst, Harry claimed to fly commercial *a lot* already.

“I came here by commercial,” he said at the time. “I spend 99% of my life traveling the world by commercial. Occasionally there needs to be an opportunity based on a unique circumstance to ensure my family are safe and it’s genuinely as simple as that. But as I said in my speech, for me it’s about balance.”

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Environmental impact is just one of the controversies Harry and Meghan are facing amid their current U.K. trip, during which they’re “delighted to visit with several charities close to their hearts,” according to their spokesperson.

The Sussexes’ itinerary for the trip includes several appearances in support of charitable organizations, including some they supported during their time as working royals. As a result, some royal insiders are reportedly irked and feel like Harry and Meghan are trying to low-key act like working royals against the Queen’s wishes.

“The chutzpah of those two is unreal,” a former Buckingham Palace staffer told The Daily Beast of Harry and Meghan’s charity tour. “Their proposal for being hybrid working royals was comprehensively rejected [at the Sandringham Summit], but it looks like they are just going ahead and doing it anyway.”