King Philippe, Queen Mathilde and Family, General News 3, Dec 2023 -

[iceflower]

The Palace posted the photos as well this morning, including a lovely caption:

The King and Queen celebrate their silver wedding anniversary today. 25 years of a happy marriage. And still counting!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1864219623417151561

 

[Linda_26]

A look back at King Philippe's travels this year, in an article by Wim Dehandschutter:

Op werkreis naar Namibië of naar familiefeest in Frankrijk: 9 reizen voor Filip, zeker 40 vluchten in 2024


The King went abroad using a military plane 9 times (around 40 flights in total): three times for official duties, the others for private travels. Aside from stays at the family's holiday home in the Île d'Yeu in France, there were private trips to Spain (hiking part of the Santiago Trail in the Easter holidays, and visiting Emmanuel at his football academy in Zaragoza in November), South France (in the weekend 28/30 June, for the family celebration of Albert and Paola's 65th wedding anniversary in Grasse) and Italy (Autumn holidays in Sicily).

 

[tommy100]

That sounds pretty reasonable - if he has to use the military plane for travel for security reasons they don't seem to be abusing the privilege. It is certainly less than other monarchs seem to use government planes!

 

[Somebody]

Many royal families (are allowed to) make use of non-government planes for private travel, so I think most royal families of a small country make less than 40 flights in a government plane a year.

 

[tommy100]

Yes, many monarchs can travel by scheduled air. But looking at the Dutch RF for example I would say the Belgian monarch is travelling less. Likewise here in the UK the King uses RAF jets to travel to Scotland each time he goes, with fairly frequent return trips in between for various official events. I don’t think Philippe’s is the least nor the most use.

 

[Somebody]

Yes, many monarchs can travel by scheduled air. But looking at the Dutch RF for example I would say the Belgian monarch is travelling less. Likewise here in the UK the King uses RAF jets to travel to Scotland each time he goes, with fairly frequent return trips in between for various official events. I don’t think Philippe’s is the least nor the most use.

The previous statement was about other royal families traveling more in 'government planes'. I agree that the British use the government planes (or other air travel) quite often (the country is also a bit larger than Belgium), however, the Dutch for example often fly commercially (while for some reason the Belgian king is supposed to use a military plane?!), so, I doubt they fly more often by government plane.

Nonetheless, the Belgian king keeps his personal air travel rather limited compared to many other royals (but I assume 4 holidays + 2 (3) family-related trips abroad still far exceeds the average number of foreign holidays/trips by most Belgian families):
- 2x holiday in France
- 1x holiday in Spain
- 1x holiday in Italy
- 1x anniversary celebration in France
- 1x visit to their son in Spain
They were in the UK for Elisabeth's graduation but I assume they traveled by train as that trip isn't on the list.

 

[tommy100]

I thought the Dutch King wasn’t allowed to use scheduled flights as well?

 

[Somebody]

I thought the Dutch King wasn’t allowed to use scheduled flights as well?

To avoid further derailing this thread about Philippe and Mathilde, I answered in this thread about Willem-Alexander and Máxima