The post-pandemic world cannot be built without private jets just yet. Far from it even in Europe, tip Greenpeace in a report on Thursday. It is based on a study conducted by EC Delft*, which grouped together all the journeys made by private planes departing from or arriving in one of the 27 States of the European Union but also Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
The research firm counts 572,806 flights carried out in 2022. An increase of 64% compared to 2021, the year during which 350,078 flights were recorded. This increase is even more dizzying if you take 2020 as a starting point, when the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak. The number of private flights then fell to 118,756 flights from or to Europe.
55% of flights in 2022 less than 750 km
Like the air sector in general, private aviation seems to be gradually regaining its wings. Very bad news then for Greenpeace. “This rise in private jet flights is a scandal, at a time when citizens are being asked to make efforts to limit their energy consumption,” said Klara Maria Schenk, head of the European campaign. Mobility for All long. She also points to the “disastrous consequences on the climate” of private jets. The report refers to this subject on the calculations of Transportation & Environment. “Private jets are five to fourteen times more polluting per passenger than commercial flights and fifty times more polluting than trains, assessed this federation of European NGOs specializing in transport in a study from May 2021. Some private jets also emit two tonnes of CO2 per hour, while the average carbon footprint in the EU was 6.8 tonnes per person in 2019.”
Still from the CE Delft database, Greenpeace estimates the quantity of CO2 emitted by the 572,806 flights at 3,385 million tonnes, “i.e. the average annual CO2 emissions of 550,000 inhabitants of the European Union”, compares the NGO . Avoidable? Largely for Greenpeace. “55% of these 572,806 flights in 2022 were short or very short trips, less than 750 km and which could easily have been made by train,” the report said. In the list of the ten most frequented routes by these private planes, Paris-London appears in first place and, in third place, Paris-Geneva. Between these cities, however, there are rail connections of less than 3h30 and offering several round trips per day.
France, bad student
Paris and Nice appear several times in the top 10 European routes most used by private jets. “Between 2021 and 2022, the number of private jet flights departing from France increased by 55% and the emissions generated increased by 93%, points out Greenpeace. In 2022, France is the country with the most private jet flights in the EU and generated 11% of private jet emissions in Europe. These 84,885 flights emitted 383,100 tonnes of CO2, i.e. the average annual emissions of 85,133 French residents. »
The subject will be on the agenda of the National Assembly on April 6, while the group of Green MPs intends to take advantage of its parliamentary niche to table a bill to ban private jet flights. The ban would concern “non-scheduled passenger air transport services that are not commercially operated”, as well as non-scheduled public air transport services “whose number of passengers is less than sixty”.
*CE Delft has built a database for this project which contains information on all flights to and from EU27 countries, including Norway, Switzerland and the UK, the report says. Flight data was provided by CIRIUM1 and includes all private flights/business flight operations to and from European countries. Flights with aircraft with less than three seats were excluded from the analysis, as well as flights to and from airports without an IATA code, and flights arriving at the same airport as they departed. The reasons are that these small planes are used for recreational or training purposes mostly. Flight data includes medical or military flights, as long as these flights were performed with aircraft generally used in business aviation.