Paris and Nice are among the ten European routes most used by private jets in 2022. At EU level, more than half of the flights corresponded to trips of less than 750 kilometers.
France is the country which had the most private jet flights in the European Union last year, a study commissioned by Greenpeace revealed on Thursday March 30. According to this survey carried out by CE Delft, France generated “11% of private jet emissions in Europe” in 2022. The NGO notes an explosion in the number of private jet flights in France in three years: they rose from 18,451 in 2020 to 84,885 in 2022. Last year, flights of this type in France issued 383,100 tons of CO2, which is equivalent, according to Greenpeace, to the average annual emissions of 85,133 French residents.
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Two French cities, Paris and Nice, are among the ten European routes most used by private jets in 2022: Paris-London, Nice-London, Paris-Geneva and Paris-Nice even place themselves in the top 4, with more than 2,000 flights recorded last year for each of these routes. Paris-Bourget airport was the most used by private jets in 2021 and 2022.
A majority of journeys less than 750 km
France is not the only country to be affected by this strong demand. Record levels are reached on a European scale. The number of private jet flights increased by 64% last year, with 572,806 flights. More than half (55%) corresponded to short or very short journeys, that is to say less than 750 kilometres. “Despite the coronavirus pandemic, airport disruptions and rising fuel and energy prices, private jet traffic has exploded over the past three years in Europe, sending over 5.3 million tons of CO2″, laments Greenpeace.
1st in the ranking: Paris -> Paris
12 mins by car
F-HTTO from TotalEnergies pic.twitter.com/Vd09kTLNT9— laviondebernard (@laviondebernard) March 28, 2023
Faced with this observation, Greenpeace calls for a ban on private jets and puts forward the bill brought by the parliamentary niche of the environmental group in the National Assembly. The NGO would like to see the opening in France of a “important debate for climate justice” of which “The government unfortunately still seems light years away.”
This study, carried out by CE Delft “is based on data provided by the aviation analysis company Cirium”. It looked at all private flights departing from and arriving in European countries between 2020 and 2022. Greenpeace specifies that “certain types of small aircraft with less than three seats have been excluded from the data, as they are mainly used for leisure rather than business or private flights”as ” flights to and from airports without an IATA code, as well as flights arriving at the same airport from which they departed, were excluded.”