Prince William and Princess Kate Enjoy the Trappings of a VIP Suite at London’s Heathrow Airport that Costs Over $4,000 Per Flight

Prince William and Kate Middleton on a plane

(Image credit: Getty)

published July 24, 2023

The Prince and Princess of Wales may have a focus on sustainability, but they’re still royals, after all. This point is evident when William and Kate travel through London’s Heathrow Airport, where, after breezing through airport security, they tuck into a VIP suite that costs about £3,300 pounds per flight (that converts to roughly $4,140). The suite is, appropriately, called the Windsor Suite, and it’s employed by the Waleses as they prepare to jet set abroad, whether for a royal tour or for a personal holiday.

You can find the Windsor Suite in Terminal 5 of Heathrow, and, per Hello, it is “ideal for royals, world leaders, and A-list celebrities alike.” Guests in the Windsor Suite are treated to chauffer service, the private luxury suite, Michelin-star menus, and unlimited champagne inside its walls—“no such thing as a grab-and-go sandwich from Pret for these royals,” the outlet reports. (Hey, nothing wrong with those grab-and-gos.) For those folks like William and Kate who would attract too much attention if left to the airport like the rest of us, the Windsor Suite is the answer.

Food inside the Windsor Suite is prepared by Michelin-starred chef Jason Atherton and is served to guests via a personal butler. Atherton’s menu features “light and seasonal” British produce, ranging from light snacks to more indulgent options, Hello reports. And the desserts—the desserts! Think “decadent pastries filled with pistachio and drizzled in honey,” and “chocolate fondue served with marshmallows, shortbread, and fresh strawberries,” per Hello. For the main course, the menu includes “BBQ pulled chicken with celeriac slaw, spiced sea bream with warm chickpea and samphire salad, confit tomatoes, charred aubergine puree and saffron aiolo, and steamed seabass with bergamot marmalade and pickled fennel.”

“You can order from the menu as much as you want,” Priya Malhotra, head of Heathrow VIP, told Business Insider. “You can even order the entire menu and drink me out of Dom [Perignon champagne]—please do so, but I might be grumpy.”

William and Kate often fly commercial—not always first class, but, if they should choose to do so on British Airways, the airline’s menu for first class passengers includes seasonal dishes like “oak-smoked Gressingham duck, Italian burrata with summer truffle, and lobster tortelloni with clam and sweetcorn chowder.”

If you want to experience the Windsor Suite, you can—it’s not off limits to the general public. To get an inside look for yourself, it’ll run you the aforementioned £3,300 pounds for a two-hour service, with the only caveat being that you must be a first class or business class passenger.

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.

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