In the backdrop of UPA government's recent austerity drive, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Sunday decided to abandon the use of personal aircraft for his visits abroad.

Krishna, who is following the government's austerity call, said he would travel to Belarus by a commercial flight.

The external affairs minister has also decided to cut back the staff travel and now he will be accompanied by only two officials.

As a foreign minister, he is entitled to use one chartered aircraft for travel abroad.  

The austerity fever has started catching up, with a host of Union Ministers vowing to cut expenses on travel and other aspects related to their work, following the example set by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Mukherjee, who is in the midst of a controversy over austerity measures imposed by his ministry, flew to Kolkata on Saturday by economy class of a budget airline. His office said he would return tomorrow by economy class on an Air India flight.

Jumping on the bandwagon of the austerity drive were a number of other ministers, including Vilasrao Deshmukh, Veerappa Moily, Anand Sharma, Sushilkumar Shinde, Praful Patel, Mamata Banerjee, Krishna Tirath, Jairam Ramesh and Dinesh Trivedi, who vowed to cut expenses on travel and other aspects related to their work.

(With PTI inputs)