What's Next? Shopping At Wal-Mart?

When President Bush heads to Texas for a few days on the ranch, he naturally takes Air Force One. Vacation or not -- when the sitting president travels, he goes on his own plane. Not so Mr. Bush's British counterpart, Prime Minister Tony Blair.

When Blair travels on affairs of state, he typically takes a BAe-146 from a regiment called the Queen's Flight. But that costs a pretty penny -- about $20,000 for a recent trip to Italy, according to the London Telegraph... and that caused something of an uproar among Her Majesty's subjects.

So when it came time to return from Italy, Blair and his wife decided to go low-budget... VERY low-budget. Along with their eight-member party, the Blairs climbed on board a Ryanair flight back to London.

Cost per ticket: $91.73.

Of course, the Blairs didn't have to scramble for seats like the rest of the passengers; they sat in a specially reserved section at the front of the plane. And we don't know if the Blairs took advantage of Ryanair's offer to let them bring their own food on board the flight, or if they had to pay Ryanair's recently introduced $5 fee for each checked bag (ANN guess: probably not.)

When the flight landed at Stansted... Mr. Blair was met by a limo on the tarmac and whisked away. Several passengers on the flight grumbled afterwards, saying they were delayed by the Blair party.

"I can confirm that Mr Blair and his party left Rome on a Ryanair flight," said Adriano Franceschetti, a spokesman for Italy's Ciampino airport. "The plane was due to take off at 16.30 on Saturday but left at 16.55 - a little bit of a hold up is to be expected, I suppose, when you have the Prime Minister as a passenger."

And hey... whaddaya expect for $91.73 per person?

FMI: www.ryanair.com