He is famous for prompting the political crisis of last summer, missing the boat in Macau and keeping Chinese dignitaries waiting for hours, and basically for his uncanny knack for courting bad press. Now Deputy PM Paulo Portas has done it again by flying executive class when even the Prime Minister sticks to the government’s “go economy” rule.
Portas took the expensive way out of Madrid on the last leg of his latest official trip to Venezuela, reports Correio da Manhã.
The decision, made because the government minister was on a gruelling 10-hour flight schedule, went directly against a government ruling that all short-hop flights should be travelled economy class.
Explaining that this ‘short-hop’ came at the end of a long haul from Caracas to Lisbon, Portas’ office was hoping that no one would put too much store on the break from official protocol.
But even Prime Minister Passos Coelho sticks to the rules. Returning from Panama to Lisbon recently, he also had to pass through Madrid and he travelled economy.
