Trumps take his-and-hers jets to Mar-a-Lago, continuing to run up bill for taxpayers

Melania Trump flew separately to join President Trump for a long Easter weekend at Mar-a-Lago, getting the chance for some quality family time – while also contributing to her husband's growing taxpayer-paid travel tab.

The first lady arrived in West Palm Beach Thursday on a government aircraft – the military version of a Boeing 757, about 6:30pm, just minutes before her husband landed on Air Force One.

Vice President Mike Pence took the same plane Melania used to a conference in Munich earlier this year.

The first lady lives at Trump Tower with her and the president's son, Barron, whose private school in New York is off this week for spring break.

The per-hour cost of operating the plane is $15,846, meaning the total trip cost was at least $100,000.

Conservative pro-transparency group Judicial Watch estimates that it costs taxpayers $1 million for each trip President Trump takes to Mar-a-Lago.

Another available figure is the $3.6 million it cost President Obama to take a single trip to Chicago and Palm Beach while in office. This has prompted some to tabulate Trump's running costs at over $20 million.

Tom Fitton, president of the group, sued to gain access to Obama-era travel documents, said Trump should be cognizant of the costs born by taxpayers.

'Taxpayers are on the hook for each trip. We have a right to expect that the president be a steward of these funds, and funds that he has direct control over, because he decides whether to go or not,' Fitton told DailyMail.com.

According to the New York Times, the president has spent 22 days at Mar-a-Lago during his presidency, which hit its 85th day Friday. He has spent 27 days, or nearly a third of his time in office, visiting a Trump property.

His travel has sometimes drawn criticism for providing brand promotion for his properties at taxpayer expense. Annual club dues at Mar-a-Lago were doubled to $200,000 after Trump took office.

For some other trips, the first lady has hopped aboard Air Force One for the trip to Mar-a-Lago, as she did during the eighth week of his president. Melania Trump, the president, and Barron Trump could all be seen exiting the plane. The first lady waived at one point and the president made a fist for the gathered crowd.

"I can't think of anything like this that we've seen at anytime in the modern era," George Washington Law School professor Steve Schooner told NBC News for a story on the president's travel.

"It's just another example of his consistent efforts to exploit public office for private gain,' the ethics expert added. 'He's using his official office and the fact that people have to travel with him, meet him, and follow him to promote his commercial enterprise, in this case his privately owned club.'