[I]n the early days of Bernie Sanders’ presidential run, the Vermont senator traveled uncomfortably, like most people.
On the ground, Sanders packed into midsize rental cars with his top advisers, pounding the pavement in Iowa and New Hampshire. In the air, he often squeezed into coach seats. His frugal habits made him a commercial flight crusader, and photos of the candidate on board went viral, spawning the Twitter hashtag #SandersOnAPlane.
But as fundraising quickly ramped up, Sanders upgraded.
In early December, as the campaign heated up and polls tightened, the Sanders campaign began chartering jets with the Missouri-based Air Charter Team, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
The senator flew from state to state in big planes — including a Boeing 737 emblazoned with the big blue logo for the defunct Eastern Airlines.
Since December, Sanders’ chartered plane spending remained constant throughout his filed financial disclosures, which go through May. In that time, Sanders spent more than $5.2 million on private charters.
The plethora of #SandersOnAPlane Twitter posts diminished, while a new hashtag emerged, #BernForceOne.
Sanders’ most expensive trip over the primary season appears to be one not directly related to his campaign: his April excursion to the Vatican City for a conference hosted by its Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
Sanders spoke at the conference and had a quick exchange with Pope Francis. He then flew nine hours back to America for his final burst of campaigning before the New York primary, which he lost.
.@BernieSanders is about to take off for NY. We’ve been served a menu for the 9 hour chartered flight he’s taking pic.twitter.com/1nR15R3aQQ
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) April 16, 2016
Officials at Air Charter Team declined Thursday to discuss the exact cost of the flight to Italy, and Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs did not return multiple requests for comment.
But an April FEC report shows $562,746 in payments to Air Charter on April 14, two days before Sanders’ overseas trip.
Air Charter Team officials also didn’t confirm whether Sanders’ charter contract remained active, though when Sanders landed in Burlington last week, his jet bore a new logo, for the charter company Swift Airlines.
While spending numbers aren’t available yet for June, Sanders has flown privately in recent jaunts between Burlington and Washington, D.C., to speak with leading political figures, including President Barack Obama and his former rival in the primary, Hillary Clinton.
.@BernieSanders on his plane, w/ his wife, headed back to Burlington after meeting w/ Clinton & Senate Dems today pic.twitter.com/qSt9a0R3AD
— MaryAlice Parks (@maryaliceparks) June 15, 2016
Every major presidential candidate this cycle has used chartered jets to get around. Candidates justify the cost of renting airliners by pointing to the large number of aides and traveling reporters who accompany them everywhere, as well as the tight schedules they must follow.
In March, for example, the Sanders held rallies in four states in one day, jetting from Ohio to North Carolina before capping off the day in Missouri and Illinois.
In addition, security concerns for presidential candidates can be minimized by avoiding commercial flights.
Clinton has her own history with private air travel. A 2015 USA Today report revealed she was the “Senate’s biggest spender on reported charter airfare” during her tenure serving New York.
During this election season, Clinton has spent slightly more than Sanders, shelling out at least $5.6 million to New York-based Executive Airways.
But while Team Clinton has spent at least $400,000 more than Sanders, the former secretary of
state began flying privately six months before Sanders, in June of last year.
In comparing Clinton’s and Sanders’ private air travel over the same period of time, between December and May, Sanders spent $1.2 million more than she did.
Sanders’ larger travel budget could be indicative of many things, including that his schedule was often more crammed than Clinton’s. When he jumped in, Sanders had much lower name recognition than Clinton did, and he needed to get in front of many people in many states.
For as Sanders himself recently explained, “this is a campaign that one year ago was considered a fringe candidacy, 70 points behind Secretary Clinton.”
Now he has all but conceded the Democratic race to Clinton, who has enough delegates in her corner to secure the nomination.
