Royal finances: 'Airmiles Andy' and the £378,000 taxpayer-funded travel bill Travel accounted for £6.1m of the total, with other members of the Royal family also racking up large bills on charter flights. The most expensive trip of the year was the Prince of Wales's tour of the Middle East and Africa last November with the Duchess of Cornwall, which cost £460,387 after a private aeroplane was chartered for the entire trip. Only five days earlier, the Prince of Wales had run up a £67,215 bill on a round trip to Riyadh to attend the funeral of the Saudi crown prince, Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud. Royal aides said charter flights were only used when scheduled flights were unavailable, but even when members of the Royal family fly on scheduled flights, their staff fly business class, which is typically eight times more expensive than economy. The Duke of York, who travels with three or four staff, stood down from his role as Britain's trade ambassador in July last year, but carried on with engagements he had previously agreed to fulfil. The royal accounts show he spent £378,249 on travel, of which £354,667 was on trade missions for UK Trade and Investment. They included visits to Jakarta, Bangkok, Washington, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and two trips to China. Among the four trips he made on chartered aircraft were a UKTI visit to China, Thailand and Malaysia in October, which cost £72,250, and another visit to China, costing £62,215. The figures include hotel bills but do not include the cost of flights and hotels for police bodyguards. The royal accounts only give detailed figures for trips costing more than £10,000, meaning the true figure for the Duke of York's travel bill could be significantly higher. The Royal flight's helicopter was used 153 times by various members of the Royal family, at a cost of £549,183, while chartered helicopters cost £276,719 and 47 other charter flights costing less than £10,000 each added another £338,054. The accounts show that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's tour of Canada and California last year cost the taxpayer £51,410, the cost of business class seats for them and their entourage on a flight back from Los Angeles. The Duke and Duchess, and their foreign relations adviser Sir David Manning were given free upgrades to first class by British Airways. The rest of the trip was paid for by the Canadian government, which provided a charter aircraft for the royal party. A reconnaissance visit to California by the Duke and Duchess's staff cost the taxpayer another £15,094. The figures released by Buckingham Palace include the Prince of Wales's £2m travel bill, which was announced in Clarence House's accounts on Friday, as the accounts detail all publicly-funded royal spending. The accounts do not include the Prince of Wales's private income and spending from the Duchy of Cornwall. The 2011-12 financial year was the last one in which the Queen's finances were funded by the Civil List and Government grants. For the current financial year the Queen's funding will come from a percentage of the profits of the Crown Estate, increasing her income to a projected £36m. Royal aides said the extra money had been earmarked for urgent repairs to the royal palaces which had been put off for years because of a steady decrease in the Queen's income in real terms.