The pope’s not perfect, but he’s doing a lot of things right. For instance, did you know that he doesn’t have a private jet to whisk him from country to country when he goes out on tour? Not even joking: The pope flies commercial. The pope is regular people. Popes: They’re just like us!
Yahoo reports that Pope Francis doesn’t need a tricked-out jet to fly in comfort. Instead, “Shepherd One,” which is what his plane is called, is just a regular old sky machine (usually Alitalia) that is returned to its commercial fleet once he’s done with it. You could be sitting in the Pope’s seat! And, according to Yahoo, there isn’t any real “Shepherd One” either. That title is given to any plane the pope is on at the time. He doesn’t even fly first class!
In reality, when the pope flies on his Alitalia leg of the journey, the commercial plane is little changed from any other flight. The pope just enjoys a row in business class all to himself.
From there the pontiff will switch to a national commercial carrier. For example, Francis will be flying American while he is in the United States.
And just like you, the pope doesn’t really care what his plane looks like. In a piece for The New Yorker, Robin Wright described what it was like taking to the skies with Pope John Paul II:
“We traveled from Rome on Alitalia, then picked up a national airline in each host country for the next leg,” Wright wrote. “The only thing truly papal about each flight was the yellow-and-white Vatican flag that popped out from a cockpit window on landing. We once took a Philippines Airline plane with ‘HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD’ emblazoned on the side, in honor of its new Los Angeles route. That plane got so much press play—for the irony—that the airline had it painted over and replaced it with a huge ‘VIVA IL PAPA’ for our six-day tour.
The only differences between you and the pope? He probably doesn’t have to deal with layovers. Oh, and if Francis follows John Paul II’s lead he blesses every country he flies over. But you probably do that, too. (Via Yahoo)
