Her conversion from princess to queen caught her traveling. At the age of 25, Isabel Alejandra María, daughter of Jorge VI of the United Kingdom, spent the night of February 6, 1952 at the Treetops, a hotel in the heart of Aberdare National Park, Kenya. When she woke up, she received the news that her father had passed away. Automatically, in that wooden building in the Aberdare mountains, she knew that from that moment she became queen. A queen who ended up being the most traveled head of state in history, with 117 countries visited and more than 1.6 million kilometers traveled by land, sea and air. Wherever she went, she represented the UK by witnessing the world change firsthand for seven decades.
In recent years, the bulk of royal trips abroad for a few days have been made by plane, although at the beginning of his reign, in 1952, official trips to countries around the world, especially those made to the Commonwealth of Nations or Commonwealth, they were much longer and were designed much more calmly. It could be said that they were preparing at the rhythm of a sea voyage. As a symbol of the new times in the monarchy, the veteran HMY Victoria and Albert III, a royal yacht launched in 1899, was withdrawn from service and the same year of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, the Scottish shipyard John Brown
The Britannia, a beautiful ship 126 meters long, has since been one of the symbols of the United Kingdom throughout the world. She visited ports of colonies and former colonies in times of the cold war. The queen first boarded her yacht in the western Libyan port of Tobruk, where King Idris played host to her and to senior British and American commanders who set up bases in the country in exchange for help. economic. Then came the discovery of oil, the coup by Muammar Gaddafi and the end of the Libyan monarchy. By then, 1969, Queen Elizabeth had already passed some 40 countries on an official visit. Among these, she traveled to Nepal, Iran, Vatican City, Sweden and Ethiopia. In that time period she also visited a pre-Pinochet coup Chile, the western part of a divided Germany, the United States of Eisenhower and the Belgium of a young King Baudouin.
The countries most visited by the mother of Carlos, the Prince of Wales, have been the members of the Commonwealth, since she was the symbolic queen and head of state of 15 of the 54 countries that make it up, although the day to day of each one, be it a kingdom or a republic, was the logical task of the local prime minister or governor. To these territories, which range from small Caribbean islands to huge continental extensions, Isabel dedicated no more and no less than 186 trips. The most visited was Canada, where she arrived by sea and air up to 27 times.
In addition to acting as the eternal ambassador of the United Kingdom, Isabell II’s trips were also a promotional platform for the two national airlines: BEA and BOAC. The first, an acronym for British European Airways, was dedicated to short and medium-range flights, while BOAC or British Overseas Airways Corporation specialized in long-range flights. From the merger of both, in the spring of 1974, British Airways was born, an airline that the English royal house also used frequently for her trips.
The head of state flew in practically all the planes in the fleets of these companies, including the famous British Airways Concorde, with which she was able to travel twice the speed of sound for the first time. She went on a trip to Barbados, where a unit of this plane is currently preserved as a technological jewel. Other trips in the Franco-British supersonic were destined for the United States, Kuwait and other countries of the Persian Gulf. In most cases the aircraft was completely reconfigured and chartered. In others, very specific, a part of the cabin was strictly reserved and armored for those who made the official trip. The crews were asked to sign confidentiality agreements and on some occasions it was the case that the rest of the passengers on that flight found out afterwards that they had shared a real trip after receiving a commemorative pencil at the end of the trip: “you He has shared this flight with Queen Elizabeth II”, could be read in golden letters on the wood of the mechanical pencil.
The queen also had planes strictly dedicated to her and her family’s travels. In fact, after the Second World War, a historical unit was reestablished, the ‘King’s Flight’ or ‘flight of the king’, which logically changed gender when Elizabeth II came to the throne, in the same way that the legendary James Bond in the movies has been “on her majesty’s secret service” in the last 60 years (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and not On His Majesty Secret Service, having been in the service of a king).
Since the 1980s, the real transport aircraft-type has been the British Aerospace BAe 146, a high-wing, British-made quadjet that, although in a commercial version can carry up to 90 passengers, in the Elizabeth II and family configuration, it accommodates a maximum of 26 people in all comfort, including a small suite. It has been many years since this model was discontinued and since there is no substitute built in the United Kingdom, this same year, the logistics department of the Ministry of Defense decided to incorporate Falcon 900LX aircraft, the latest generation of the French trijet, for transport duties for the royal family and members of the British government. They also have at their disposal an Airbus A330 with intercontinental range and an Airbus A321 leased from a British commercial company, which has painted it in the colors of the British flag and reconfigured it with comfortable seats and new communication systems. Recently returned to its operator, the former state plane now offers air cruises around the world for an elite travel agency.
The Britannia was a state-of-the-art ship when it was launched, although it became outdated over the years. To keep it in perfect condition as a yacht that served as port Buckingham in different cities around the world, the investments were considerable, so it was decided to withdraw it in the mid-1990s. The British Conservatives then advocated the construction of a substitute and Labor found it unnecessary to maintain that privilege. The belligerence of the former with the need to build it infuriated a queen who found herself immersed in the mud of political anger without wanting it. Finally, and after many turns, the Britannia had no heir from her. Because of her symbolism, instead of ending up scrapped, the ship ended up being converted into a floating museum in Edinburgh, Scotland, where every year she is visited by about 300,000 people. The closure or cancellation also floated on another transport much loved by the family: the royal train, dedicated to traveling through England, Wales and Scotland. The convoy is made up of nine magnificent cars in perfect condition, although as its owner, it traveled less and less and spends a lot of time resting at the Wolverton Works facilities.
One of the latest additions to the service of His Majesty’s trips were two Sikorsky S76 helicopters identical to those used in Spain by the Galician Coast Guard or the Air Force at their school in Armilla, Granada. In the case of the British Royal Helicopters, these are in VIP configuration with just six seats and are painted an elegant burgundy colour. They have civil registration, a range of 700 kilometers without refueling and last spring the website of the royal house offered places to work as a pilot of these exclusive aircraft, working 37.5 hours per week, although with total flexibility. All this, together with the trips, the protocol, the thousands of miles traveled and the devices used by land, more and air, are, as of today, stories of history.
