When Donald Trump left Turkey in August, the plane most people were watching wasn't carrying the president. Reports at the time described how a catering truck from DO & CO blocked the view, Trump quietly transferred to a smaller military aircraft, and Air Force One took off carrying reporters and staff who had no idea they were flying on a decoy.

Now Secret Service Director Sean Curran has spoken about the operation. In a preview of an interview with CBS's Norah O'Donnell, aired ahead of Sunday's 60 Minutes broadcast, he was asked why the agency did it. His answer was short: "That's not the first time we've done that." He then added something more telling — that he wished the whole thing had never been reported, because publicity "takes some of our tactics away from being able to do something similar again."

Curran didn't say how many earlier swaps there were, which presidents they involved, or whether passengers were kept in the dark on those occasions too. So the honest takeaway is simply that presidential aircraft deception is routine enough to be almost unremarkable inside the agency. History backs that up: Bill Clinton travelled with a decoy plane on a trip to Pakistan back in 2000.

The part of Curran's comments getting attention isn't the confirmation — it's the complaint. As the original commentary points out, the argument is shaky. Anyone capable of threatening a presidential aircraft already has to assume the president might not be on the plane they're watching. The genuinely novel elements in Ankara were the logistics of the concealment and the fact that journalists aboard had no idea the president had left their aircraft. That second detail is exactly what makes it a legitimate news story rather than a state secret: the press isn't an arm of the Secret Service, and scrutiny of how presidential protection works sits alongside the protection itself as a public interest.

For anyone who follows aviation or how presidential movement actually works, the interview is worth a watch — though don't expect a rundown of past aircraft swaps on Sunday. Curran's remarks suggest a lot more happens behind the scenes than any of us see, and the agency would clearly prefer it stayed that way.

Why it matters for travellers: less about the politics and more about understanding that high-profile air travel often involves layer after layer you never see. If you're ever at an airport when Air Force One or a presidential delegation arrives, expect ground stops, unusual catering movements and closed ramps — and now, possibly, a plane that isn't what it appears to be.

Story reported by Live and Let's Fly.