Europe's super-wealthy took over 300,000 very short private jet flights last year — including over 1,300 between London and an airport 30 miles away — study says
RaptTV/Getty Images
- A study from Greenpeace analysed a database of Europe's private jet flights over the last three years.
- It found that 55% of them were under 466 miles long, and launched a campaign to ban private jets.
- Over 1,300 flights on one UK route could have taken a 35-minute train for less than $20 instead.
Private jets in Europe made over 300,000 flights under 466 miles in length last year, as the aviation industry returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The study published by climate campaigners Greenpeace uses research from CE Delft, which built a database on all private flights in the European Union, plus Norway, Switzerland, and the UK.
55% of those were shorter than the distance between New Orleans, Louisiana and Nashville, Tennessee.
Greenpeace says there's less excuse for that in Europe because public transport systems are well-developed.
The most popular route for private fliers in 2022 was London to Paris — about the same distance as New York City to Washington DC — despite a maximum 2 hours 37 minutes train connection with up to 10 daily trips each way.
According to the Transport and Environment campaign group, private jets are 50-times more polluting than trains.
The data also shows that over 1,300 private flights went between London and Farnborough, England – a 30 mile train journey which you could travel in 35-minutes for less than $20. Last year, that route emitted 2,692 tonnes of carbon dioxide – the equivalent of 183 Americans' yearly output, per data from The World Bank.
Greenpeace also raised concerns about the total number of private flights increasing 380% between 2020 and 2022, but it's not clear how much of this was caused by COVID-19 lockdowns because the study doesn't include data from before the pandemic.
"The alarming growth of private jet flights is entirely at odds with all the climate science that tells us to bring down CO2 emissions immediately in order to avert total disaster," said Greenpeace campaigner Klara Maria Schenk, per CNBC.
And Thomas Gelin of Greenpeace EU added: "Pollution for wasteful luxury has to be the first to go," as the group launched a petition to outlaw private jets.