William and Kate’s Team Once Staged a Wales Family Photo Op to Strike out at Harry and Meghan — Book
Years before the edited Mother’s Day photo controversy came drama about another appearance by the Wales family. Prince William, Kate Middleton, and their three children were part of a “premeditated publicity setup,” according to an author. It involved a budget flight on the heels of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle coming under fire for taking private jets.
The Wales family’s 2019 budget flight photo op proved successful at first
Between the many royal bombshells in his latest book, November 2023’s Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival, author Omid Scobie revisited an August 2019 “stunt” out of the Wales camp.
The Prince and Princess of Wales were spotted boarding a budget flight to the royal family’s Balmoral Estate, along with their kids: Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis.
Simon Case, whom the Duke of Sussex referred to as “The Fly” in his 2023 Spare memoir, was behind it, the author wrote. A “political operator dressed up as a civil servant,” Case jumped at the chance to “elevate” William.
“Seizing the moment, which he perceived as a highly embarrassing one for Harry, he took another step in his PR long game for his boss,” Scobie said of Case. “Just days later, William, Kate, and their children were spotted boarding a commercial budget airline flight from Norwich to Aberdeen for a trip to Balmoral.”
“Although there were no photographers on the tarmac, a conveniently captured phone video popped up in the press showing William, Kate, and their children casually making their way off the plane at the airport.”
The budget flight made headlines, with outlets touting William and Kate’s willingness to board a commercial flight with their kids. “A premeditated publicity setup; this was all Case’s handiwork,” Scobie wrote. “A stroke of backhanded artifice, it was a successful stunt — at first, anyway.”
The ‘perfect family trip’ for William, Kate, and their kids soon became a ‘showy publicity stunt’
“Unknown to the public at the time, William and Kate’s casual trip wasn’t quite as environmentally friendly or spendthrift as it first appeared,” he continued.
A palace aide discussed the plan with an airline executive, who then sent a “properly branded” plane — from a town 123 miles away — to the airport where William and Kate were taking off from.
Furthermore, the plane returned empty after William, Kate, George, Charlotte, Louis, and the rest of the passengers arrived in Scotland. “All told, the two empty flights released upward of 4.5 million tons of carbon emissions,” Scobie wrote.
Meanwhile, Kensington Palace denied knowing anything about the plane. “The whole farce turned into a fail for all involved regardless,” the author wrote. “Their perfect family trip was exposed for what it really was: a showy publicity stunt.”
A royal aide didn’t like the tactics surrounding the Wales family photo op
“Even in this early stage of his Kensington Palace post,” Scobie wrote, “some officials in the other households were less impressed with Case’s stratagem.”
An aide at Buckingham Palace admitted to not being a fan of the private secretary and “laughed” about the situation backfiring while speaking to the author.
“Nice try, but in the end, they looked like bigger hypocrites than the couple they were trying to show up,” they told Scobie.
While the budget flight photo op may have failed, the Endgame author concluded the “PR gambits” were ultimately “successes for Kensington Palace.” Why? Because “reconciliation still seems like a long shot” for Harry and William.
