You can bet your hypocritical a** that they examined the options and decided that taking the A340 was the only possible solution taking into account the number of persons traveling, further goods to be transported, the schedule and the destinations.
I'm living here and I can assure you, that they even didn't take scheduled flights into account. But no one would bother about this, but a "green" party, promising not to use Luftwaffe's planes whenever there is a scheduled option raises concerns. The green party lost already 30% in the surveys, this will accelerate now.
Guess, how many px seats are available each day from Germany via XYZ to Canberra (initial destination). Aren't there countless of airlines from Europe, Middle East and Asia incl. Australia with services on these routes? The delegation was 120 people incl. journalists and others, so no harm would have occured, it this group would have been split on several aircraft? Also this journey wasn't spontaneous, but planned months in advance, so enough time to book everyone.
So this women wasted a total of estimated 250 to of fuel (the flights from Berlin to AUH and back included), but each houseowner has to justify why using gas or oil for heating. This is what makes people here upset.