The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge budget flight to Scotland took place on an empty passenger plane, it was claimed last night.
Following on from the criticism surrounding Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's four private jet jaunts in 11 days, Prince William and Kate Middleton were praised for grabbing the green initiative.
Earlier this week a video of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge along with their children boarding a commercial airline to Scotland emerged.
The £73 a head flight would do significantly less environmental damage per passenger than a specially chartered private plane.
Kate and William were being less green than they thought however.
Unbeknowst to the royals, an Embraer 145 jet was ordered from FlyBe's Humberside HQ to Norwich, where the royals were flying from, according to the Daily Mail .
Kate, Will and their kids then got on this plane rather than the smaller Loganair plane initially intended to make the trip.
Flight logs show that the plane flew 123 miles down to Norfolk early on Thursday morning, with its identification number EZE041P reportedly indicating it was empty.
The Cambridges slipped onto the plane at the last minute, rather than the smaller Logan Air aircraft earmarked to make the flight up to Aberdeen.
The 8.40am flight is normally operated by Loganair on behalf of Eastern Airways, which is Flybe's franchise partner.
The two empty flights would be responsible for an extra 4.5 tonnes of carbon emissions - just shy of half of one British person's annual carbon footprint.
A spokesperson for Flybe said: "Flybe denies any involvement in the decision over which aircraft to fly on this route, which is fully operated by Eastern Airways."
On Saturday morning an Eastern Airways spokesperson said the company took full responsibility for the additional flight.
They said: “Eastern Airways can confirm any decision as to which aircraft operated the Norwich-Aberdeen service on Thursday morning was entirely that of Eastern Airways and not that of Flybe as reported.
"Any decision taken was to ensure operational control and thus accountability remained that directly of Eastern Airways."
Loganair said: "We operate services on the Norwich-Aberdeen route on behalf of Eastern Airways for Flybe – that is with Loganair aircraft and crew – but deployment of aircraft can and does change to meet airline operational requirements."
