According to an analysis of data from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), an additional 35,000 commercial flights have been nearly empty since 2019, with less than 10 percent of seats filled. This means a total of about 40,000 “ghost passages” a Watchman According to his information.
In one quarter, 62 empty planes left Luton bound for Poland, while the other quarter saw 663 nearly empty flights from Heathrow to the US and back. Both quarters were during the coronavirus pandemic.
Air travel more per hour carbon dioxide emissions The results are like any other consumer activity and are dominated by a minority of frequent flyers, which has made it the focus of climate campaigns. They described the ghost flights as “shocking” and said a tax should be imposed on jet fuel. The UK government refers to stealth flights as “environmentally harmful“Eligible.
There were 130 completely free flights per month
The reasons behind the release of empty planes are known only to airlines, but they do not publish any data to explain this practice. The new figures provide the most complete picture of the number of British ghost flights to date, as previous figures included only international flights. It now includes both international and domestic flights. The Civil Aviation Authority will now publish this data on a quarterly basis.
Disseminating the data is a step in the right direction, but we need more transparency to understand why these ineffective polluting practices persist and to hold the main culprits, the airlines, accountable,
Tim Johnson of the Aviation Environment Association said: Added given that Climate emergencyThe finding that many near-empty aircraft are burning fossil fuels and adding to the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is pretty shocking.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Transport said it will work with the Civil Aviation Authority to monitor the use of aircraft and seek more transparency about phantom flights.
According to the data, since 2019, there have been an average of 130 completely empty flights per month. The number of empty flights remained at a similar level before, during and after travel restrictions due to the pandemic, and was the second highest in the second quarter of 2022.
(Cover Image: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
