Inside the papal plane

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Background on Brazil: Inside the papal plane
By John L Allen Jr Daily
Created May 8 2007 - 14:33
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

During Pope Benedict XVI’s May 9-13 trip to São Paulo and Aparecida,
Brazil, I’ll once again be travelling on the papal plane. Because I’m
often asked about the experience of travelling with the pope, I’ll
offer some background here.

First of all, Americans who conceive of the “papal plane” by way of
analogy to Air Force One are on the wrong track, even though the papal
plane is sometimes designated by air traffic controllers and headline
writers as “Shepherd One.”

In reality, there is no “papal plane,” in the sense of a jet owned by
the Vatican and used exclusively for papal travel. Instead, a regular
commercial jet owned by Alitalia, the national air carrier of Italy,
is set aside the day of the pope’s departure. The pilots and crew are
all regular Alitalia employees. The next day, the plane returns to
running Alitalia’s normal routes, with its passengers presumably
unaware that they’re sitting in what was only recently the “papal
plane.”

There’s also no special room on the plane for the pope, no Air Force
One-esque office with a couch, desk, TV set, and wet-bar. His lone
perk is that he gets a seat by himself in the front row. Behind him
are the most senior officials from the Secretariat of State, beginning
with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. (This seating arrangement usually
means that when the flight attendants sit down for take-off, they’re
directly across from the Holy Father. Watching them try not to stare
is a favorite on-board pastime.)

During John Paul’s final years, when he struggled to walk, he would
enter the plane from the rear using a special elevated platform,
essentially a modified version of the hydraulic compartment used to
deliver meals for the flight. Some wags briefly flirted with calling
it the “pope-lift,” by way of analogy to the “pope-mobile,” but the
term never caught on. To date, Benedict XVI is taking the stairs.

Usually, the pope returns to Italy on the national carrier of the host
country, and if he has to fly inside that country, he normally uses
the national carrier for those flights as well. Once again, this is a
normal commercial aircraft that’s set aside for the pope’s travel on
those specific days. This time, however, Benedict XVI will be
returning to Rome on Alitalia.

Rome has two airports, and in order to stay even-handed as the Bishop
of Rome, the pope normally departs from Fiumicino and returns to
Ciampino. (Among other things, this bit of local diplomacy makes life
a bit difficult for those travelling with him, since they can’t drive
their cars to the airport and leave them in long-term parking.)

In addition to the pope, the Vatican officials who travel with him,
and his small security detail, the other occupants of the papal plane
are the members of the Vatican press corps. The number of journalists
varies, but usually is somewhere between 50 and 75. For the Brazil
trip, 70 journalists will be on the plane. (This number is a tiny
fraction of the total number of journalists who will cover the trip;
local authorities in Brazil are expecting several hundred foreign
journalists, in addition to Brazilians.)

An overview of the 53 news organizations represented on the papal
plane for the Brazil trip offers something of an “x-ray” of how the
pope is covered around the world. (In some cases, more than one
journalist on the plane works for the same agency.)

Eighteen of the agencies are Italian, the largest single national
grouping. Their presence reflects the fact that the pope is big news
in Italy. While the Prime Minister generates a greater number of
headlines in the local papers, the Pope is the bigger global story.

Nine of the agencies are American, the second largest group. They a
Fox TV, the New York Times, Time, the National Catholic Reporter, ABC
TV, the Associated Press, Catholic News Service, the Los Angeles
Times, and Getty Images News Services. Reuters is also widely read in
the United States, though it is British-owned. Nevertheless, there are
a few American outlets missing from this trip, including CNN, NBC and
CBS. It may also be surprising to learn that only five German news
agencies are on the plane, even with a German pope. The absence of
other news outlets probably reflects both the cost of the trip, and
judgments about public interest. For better or for worse, Benedict XVI
is not a “mass market” pope in the style of John Paul II.

Five Brazilian agencies are on the plane this time, obviously driven
by national interest in the pope’s presence. There are five French
agencies, several from Spain and Portugal, and a handful from the rest
of Latin America, especially Mexico – the second-largest Catholic
country in the world, after Brazil.

It’s not cheap to travel with the pope. For the Brazil trip, each
journalist pays €3,331.18 in airfare, which is equivalent to U.S.
$4,514.85. That’s roughly what Alitalia charges for a business class
ticket from Rome to São Paulo and back, though the journalists don’t
ride in the business class section of the plane. When I began taking
the papal plane six years ago, there was still a patina of first-class
service. We would be invited to a special reception before take-off
with coffee, juice and rolls, and aboard the plane we would receive
gift bags with cologne, wine, cigarettes and other perks. Under the
weight of Alitalia’s financial woes, however, those days are long
gone.

Despite the cost and declines in VIP treatment, more journalists
always apply for the plane than can be accommodated. For any given
trip, there could be roughly 120 to 150 applications, more if the trip
is judged to be of special news interest. Each time the list is
posted, speculation circulates about why certain journalists made it
and others didn’t. Sometimes, people interpret omission from the plane
as a sign of Vatican disapproval, and over the years there probably
have been such cases.

For the most part, however, the calculus is simpler. There’s a stable
core of news outlets that travel with the pope every time, and hence
their applications are quasi-automatically approved. By my count,
roughly 50-55 of the 70 journalists on this flight fall into that
category. The Vatican Press Office will also ensure that a handful of
journalists from the host country make into onto the papal plane, as
well as others from the region. In this case, that leaves perhaps 10
“open” slots which depend upon the discretion of the Press Office.

There are only a handful of specifically “Catholic” news outlets on
the plane, including the Catholic News Service, the news agency of the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; the National Catholic
Reporter; L’Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’
conference; KNA, the German Catholic news agency; and a handful of
Catholic TV and radio outlets. In general, the Vatican Press Office
has something of a “preferential option” for major secular news
agencies, because they offer the largest audience for the pope’s
message. In addition, the cost of the trip is prohibitive for most
Catholic outlets.

Of course, travelling on the papal plane is not the only way to cover
a papal trip. Large news agencies usually deploy several people,
either based wherever the pope is going, or who travel from nearby
bureaus. They do most of the fact-gathering, monitoring of local press
reports, and “person in the street” interviews, while the
correspondent on the plane keeps his or her eyes on the pope.

Smaller outlets, however, which can send only one reporter, face a
difficult judgment call: to take the plane, or not to take the plane.
There are good journalistic arguments on both sides.

If you don’t take the papal plane, you’re free to go early, getting a
sense of the place, and/or to stay late, doing follow-up coverage.
While the pope is on the ground, you’re not part of the Vatican
“bubble” and have more freedom to pick and choose who you want to
interview, what you want to see, and so on. In addition, you can
usually do it substantially cheaper. (If you’re willing to fly
economy, you could get a Rome to São Paulo round-trip ticket on
Alitalia for €1,300. More to the point, you could skip Rome altogether
and fly directly from wherever you happen to be).

On the other hand, the advantages of being part of the papal party are
considerable. First of all, the Vatican takes care of local
accreditation, an expedited visa process, and arranges transportation
and lodging. The Vatican also handles internal movements within the
country. For example, this time they’ve arranged a chartered plane to
get the press corps back to São Paulo from the Marian sanctuary of
Aparecida. Logistically, therefore, it’s often much easier to move
with the pope.

Further, as part of the papal party, one has more ready access to the
senior Vatican officials, as well as the pope’s spokesperson, Jesuit
Fr. Federico Lombardi. When a reporter needs a quote or a
clarification in a hurry, this proximity can make a real difference.
Moreover, reporters on the plane have the chance to be included in
pools for the big events on the pope’s schedule, which sometimes puts
you in the front row as history is being made.

To be frank, there is also a certain cachet that attaches to being on
the papal plane, which can sometimes help create an audience for one’s
reporting.

Another consideration, not to be gainsaid, is that travelling on the
plane puts one in the company of many of the best Vatican writers in
the world, and the informal exchanges that go on while people are
waiting for buses, or having a beer in the hotel bar at the end of a
long day, are sometimes worth the price of admission all by
themselves.

Finally, there is a somewhat ghoulish consideration. Should the pope
have a health crisis during the trip and his plane has to be diverted
back to Rome or to some other location, as long as you’re on it,
you’ll be wherever the story is. If not, you might be stuck in
Aparecida while the drama unfolds someplace else. Naturally, this was
an especially strong consideration during the final years of John
Paul’s foreign travel.

One last point, which is usually the first question people want to ask
about the papal plane: Do reporters get to “hang out” with the pope?
In a word, no.

In the early days of John Paul’s papacy, he would come to the back of
the plane and spend substantial chunks of time with reporters in the
various language groups – Italian, French, English, Spanish, and so
on. By the time I began travelling with him, however, this had been
restricted to taking a couple of generalized questions on our outbound
flight, and perhaps sitting with each journalist for a quick picture
on the way back.

Under Benedict XVI, the new system is that Lombardi collects questions
from reporters in advance, then condenses them into perhaps three
prepared questions he poses to the pope, who delivers responses over
an audio system installed in the plane. The pope then retreats to his
section, while we remain in the back. To date, we have not been
summoned to the front on the return flight to have our pictures taken
with the pope.

Word is that on the Brazil trip, however, the outbound session with
the press will be a longer and more free-form affair, owing in part to
the fact that it's a longer flight.

On the other hand, we do often have the chance to chat with officials
from the Secretariat of State, security personnel, and other figures
such as the pope’s doctor and his spokesperson. It’s not quite as
charming as spending time with the pope himself, of course, but it can
be informative.

"Mike" wrote in message
...

[lotsa stuff deleted]

Wow...that was....uhhh....interesting. Certainly worth posting
BOTH the link to, and the full text of, a nearly-year-old
copyrighted article. SURE it was...

Bob M.