How Many Planes Does it Take?
The trip to India, Bangladesh and Pakistan will be the most expensive any president has ever taken overseas at an estimated $50 million.
     Ninety percent of the huge costs for this trip are for airplanes, drawn from an Air Force that is already stressed meeting military and humanitarian commitments overseas.
     When a president travels, all the public ever sees is Air Force One. But consider this:
Seventy-seven other Air Force planes are being used on this trip, including 26 of its biggest transports: the C-5s and C-17s. Military sources say that represents more than one third of the Air Force’s entire inventory of these planes that stand ready to fly on any given day.
The planes will make 1200 sorties to support this trip. Each sortie is a take-off and landing.
     By comparison, the most recent large humanitarian relief effort by the United States — to Mozambique where millions of lives were at stake — was minuscule. For that effort, which is still under way, the Air Force has used only about a dozen planes, flying 290 sorties.
     In fairness to all presidents, they need to meet other world leaders face to face. When they travel, their security people give them no choice but to take their own armored limousines, helicopters, security and communications.
     What a president can control is how much sightseeing he does — because with each additional stop, there comes this huge load of support and protection, which adds millions to the cost of the trip.

— John McWethy