Logan Mayor Jon Raven flies high after $10k business class upgrade to Cairo, Paris, Singapore

Logan Council is set to fork out nearly $5000 for the Mayor’s business class overseas flights, while officers will be relegated to premium economy.

Logan Council Mayor Jon Raven, with council director of Growth Economy and Sustainability David Hansen, will travel to Cairo for a forum.

Logan City Council will pay more than $4000 so its mayor can fly business class to Cairo, Singapore and Paris, while officers will be relegated to premium economy.

The council agreed to pay $2440 to upgrade the mayor from premium economy class to business class for trips to Europe, including Paris via Singapore, in February.

The council also agreed to pay similar costs to upgrade his tickets for flights to and from Cairo in November for UN-Habitat’s Quality of Life conference.

Logan voted for Mr Raven’s upgrades and to send extra staff overseas despite questions about the costs and previous mayor Darren Power railing against “international junkets” and slashing the travel budget in half to $200,000 a year.

When mayor in 2023, Mr Power borrowed money from his millionaire son, Lachlan, to get an upgrade to fly business class to the US for the SEQ Conference of Mayors.

Logan City Council’s Jon Raven with councillor Darren Power, who was a previous mayor, inside chambers in 2019. Picture: Judith Kerr

Logan was chosen to attend the Cairo event as it was part of a pilot program which collected data on living conditions from cities around the world.

Two council officers, Growth Economy and Sustainability director David Hansen and the mayor’s chief of staff, will also go to Cairo and receive upgrades to premium economy class, which the council will also pay for.

Under the council’s travel policy, staff can request to upgrade flights if they are more than three hours with the 19-hour flights to Cairo, for a Quality of Life Conference, meeting the upgrade criteria.

UN-Habitat will pay for the mayor and Mr Hansen’s accommodation, cost of economy class airfares, hotel expenses and travel incidentals.

But the full cost of travel for the mayor’s chief of staff will be covered by the council with the return international premium economy flight cost to Europe yet to be determined.

Logan council mayor Jon Raven will fly business class to Cairo and to Europe including Manchester, Paris and Singapore.

The full bill to council for the Cairo sojourn is yet to be confirmed as ticket bookings were yet to be made, however the council said all costs would be disclosed in the annual report for the current year.

Next year, the mayor will be one of 11 southeast Queensland mayors to fly around the globe to Europe to meet up for the South East Queensland Council of Mayors convention.

The council of mayors will cover the costs of return international premium economy flights valued at $8,535 with Logan council forking out the extra $2440 to upgrade the mayor to business class.

In 2019, Mr Power, then a councillor, said he had never seen any direct benefits to Logan council from overseas trips, in direct contrast to his successor Cr Raven.

The two were talking after the council approved a controversial $30,000 mayoral mission trip to China for then acting mayor Cherie Dalley.

Originally published as Logan Mayor Jon Raven flies high after $10k business class upgrade to Cairo, Paris, Singapore