Saving via a private route

There was panic in the department of electronics and information technology recently. A team of senior officials had to travel to Tel Aviv, Israel, and there were no seats available on Air India. This became an issue because government employees are mandated to fly only on the state-owned carrier in sectors covered by it, even if private carriers have cheaper options. The only routes on which seats were available had long stopovers, which officials wanted to avoid. Several permutations and combinations later, most officers took the trouble of reaching out to the civil aviation ministry for special permission to fly a private carrier (which had a more convenient route and also a much cheaper fare). The agenda of the trip was to woo Israeli companies to invest in India's electronics manufacturing sector. Whether the trip yielded any results or not, at least there were some savings for the government - but by default!