11-02-2025
The £1m private jet flight that deported fewer than 50 illegal migrants to Albania
The deportation flight filmed by the Home Office was on a private jet going to Albania at an estimated cost of £1 million, The Telegraph can reveal.
The Airbus 321, which can carry up to 240 passengers,
On Monday, the Home Office released footage and photographs of the Albanians being led up the steps to the plane by security escorts, as part of efforts to show the Government's tough stance on illegal migration.
But the estimated cost was £22,000 per deportee based on using an aircraft contracted from a private airline to remove 50 people with no right to remain in the UK, according to a Home Office impact assessment on enforced returns to safe countries.
This includes the cost of paying for three privately contracted security escorts to travel with each migrant to prevent any disruption during the flight and on arrival, as well as monitoring and transporting individuals to any legal court sittings and to the airport.
The previously secret, high-security deportation flights were filmed for the first time as part of efforts by
The video and pictures showed up to five security escorts in high-vis yellow tabards with body-worn cameras surrounding each migrant as they were led up the steps onto the chartered Airbus.
The Telegraph has been asked by the Home Office not to provide details of the name of the airline, its registration number or the location of the airport amid concerns that further deportation flights could be disrupted by protests.
Other airlines previously used by the Home Office have been targeted by critics of the policy, including a high-profile flight to Jamaica in 2021, when celebrities and
That flight finally left with only four criminals on board after 33 others were granted last-minute legal reprieves.
The Airbus was contracted from a private airline that has previously used the same model of plane to carry well-known footballers and holidaymakers on special packages.
A new Airbus A321LR, a longer-ranged version of the medium-haul airliner, is typically sold to airlines for about $71 million (£57.2 million), according to the aviation data company Cirium.
The UK's use of private airlines for deportation flights stands in contrast to the US, where Donald Trump has deployed military aircraft to enact his plans to remove thousands of illegal migrants.
Unlike the UK, all the US migrants are
The Home Office said that it had commercial arrangements with private airlines and would only use the military as a last resort.
The Ministry of Defence has reportedly previously resisted its transporter planes being diverted from military duties to carry migrants.
Labour published data on Monday showing that 18,987 people have been deported since the party entered government in July, the highest number in any six-month period since 2017, as it tries to demonstrate to voters it is acting to tackle illegal immigration.
Three quarters of the deportees left the UK voluntarily on commercial flights and only a fraction had arrived on small boats.
Thirty-nine charter flights – four more than in the same period last year – have taken people to countries including Brazil, Vietnam and Albania.
Some 12,658 Albanians crossed the Channel to the UK by small boats in 2022, of which 16,000 applied for asylum.
As a result, the UK struck a series of new agreements with the Balkan country to fast-track the return of illegal Albanian migrants to their home country. There are understood to be weekly flights to the country.
