The private jet industry has faced increasing scrutiny because the worst polluting aviation sector, however the CEO of a business aircraft operator has said that the criticism is misplaced.
Patrick Hansen, CEO of Luxaviation, claimed on the Financial Times ‘Business of Luxury’ summit in Monaco that considered one of his clients is liable for around 2.1 tons of CO₂ per yr, or as much as three dogs.
Based on the aviation leader, his figures were based on a book by an English researcher and author on carbon footprinting, Mike Berners-Lee.
In Berners-Lee’s book, ‘How Bad are Bananas?’, a dog kept as a household pet produces around 700kg of carbon emission.
The author responded in an email to the Financial Times that he was “disillusioned” to listen to his data was getting used for “bogus claims”.
He also was surprised on the figure quoted by the Luxaviation CEO and have to be for “very short flights and really small planes”.
Hansen also argued that non-public jet flights weren’t going away because they supply an enormous time-saving facility for wealthy people and data around private jet emissions needed to be “put into perspective”.
The private jet industry is conscious about objections towards the sector’s carbon footprint and far of the main focus at business aviation fair EBACE2023 was placed on sustainability.
On May 23, 2023, protesters from environmental campaign groups similar to Greenpeace and Extinction Revolt chained themselves to non-public jets that were being displayed on the Genevan event.
Based on studies cited by campaigning groups, private flights produce about 10 times the CO2 of a business flight per passenger kilometer.
In March 2023, Greenpeace commissioned a report taking a look at the effect of personal jets on pollution.
The ‘CO2 emissions of personal aviation in Europe’ report by Dutch environmental consultancy CE Delft claimed that non-public jets emitted around 3,385,538 tons of CO2 emissions during 2022, greater than double that of 2021.
The research also asserts that the entire number of personal jet flights in Europe reached 572,806, over 1.5 times the variety of flights in 2021.
Following publication of the report, the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA) hit back on the findings.
The EBBA accused Greenpeace of “spreading misleading data about business aviation” and never taking information under consideration from before the pandemic, making a “distorted picture”.
The EBBA claims that European business aviation grew by 7% from 2019 to January 2023, fairly than 64% because the report suggests.