It does look like a made-up story. His staff will submit bids to the comms fleet tasking and if a task line is available that would meet his timescales then he would get an aircraft and a cup of tea. If the bid was unsuccessful then he would have to travel civair.
My guess someone has changed the word 'bid' for 'demand' to make it look bad. The government pays for the service so it is quite right that it can make bids in accordance with the extant policy.