The World Economic Forum (WEF) was held in Davos from January 20 to 24. The question arises of the carbon footprint of the summit, due to the many private jets of its participants who flock to Switzerland. A regularly swept criticism swept by the European affairs lobby, for whom private jets would only represent “2% of civil aviation emissions which, itself, is responsible for 2% of global gas emissions greenhouse effect, or 0.04% of global emissions ”.
Under these conditions, the private jets-luxury of some-would they be a luxury that we could ultimately afford? Or, if we follow the logic of activists for the climate, is it above all about the scathing demonstration of the selfishness of the rich? To decide, it is first necessary to come back to what we mean by “private jet” and to the contemporary changes of this luxury air transport.
Let’s start by explaining what we mean by “private jet”, a term that covers different realities. The range of aircraft used goes from the “pocketjet”, with a single light reactor, with the processed airliner, such as the Boeing 757 by Donald Trump. Between the two, we find the whole range of devices delivered by Dassault (France), Pilatus (Switzerland), Dornier (Germany), Embraer (Brazil), Bombardier (Canada), Cessna, Gulfstream, Lockheed or Beechcrat (Etats- United). The market is even wider if we include turbopulsers, propeller devices with large radius of action sometimes luxuriously equipped, even certain helicopters.
The status of the owner of the machine provides other information: private jet purchased or rented, private owner or taxi aircraft, state ownership … In fact, two thirds of the 26,000 private jets are domiciled in the United States. As they are smaller, they use ten times more airports than line planes and can ensure a much finer service of a large national territory and devoid of high -speed trains. With the key, considerable economic issues. We can remember that Elon Musk had, with his Hyperloop, campaign – successfully – to have a TGV project in California hood.
A Falcon 10x pairing more than 33 meters long sold 75 million euros seem too modest to certain customers? In this case, line planes can be transformed on demand and become flying palaces. Created in Basel in 1967, the company Jet Aviation is the world leader in this market segment, on which it operates in all discretion. In comparison, some uses seem almost reasonable: for example, the new A321LR Airbus with a long range of action transformed into a luxury hotel by the Canadian hotel group Four Seasons. He then embarks only 52 passengers, against 244 at most for devices purchased by traditional airlines. The principle of these luxury cruises is to offer the possibility of discovering remarkable places scattered over thousands of kilometers during the same tourist circuit.
Multiple uses and great discretion
The missions devolved to all these aircraft are diverse. They are used by the business world and high -ranking politicians, for civil and military surveillance, by wealthy tourists or by the sports elite. Thus, the seven-time world champion of Formula 1 Lewis Hamilton had acquired a Challenger 605 from Embraer for $ 23 million in 2013, before reselling it in 2019 in order, he said, to “reduce his carbon footprint”. Private planes also favor more or less dedicated airports, such as that of Le Bourget, in Paris, the first in Europe. A small airport like that of Oxford has also shot the game. Its main trail of 1.552 km can certainly accommodate medium-haul such as the Airbus A320 for charter flights, but its essential activities concern luxury. “Discretion and anonymity Ensured with Routine Celebrity, Head of State and Royal Visits,” says the airport on its website. His heliport provides direct connections with that of London Battersa. The airport is at the heart of the “English countryside”, that is to say in a residential-even aristocratic-universe-with high-end services.
Oligarchy and air pollution.
According to a 2020 study, 1% of the world’s population is responsible for 50% of CO2 discharges from air activity. At the same time, in five years, the greenhouse gas emissions in private aviation have increased by 46%. With the increase in the number of billionaires in the East in particular, the future seems badly engaged. In addition, in the United States, several programs have revived the idea of a relatively small supersonic jet. And this while the fuel consumption of these planes increases disproportionately with their speed. Under these conditions, what to do? Prohibit private jets? Place quotas? Tax? Who could succeed in regulating a means of transport which is an increasingly frantic liberalism, with a president of the United States for whom global warming is “a hoax”?
-Only the Organization of International Civil Aviation (OCAI) lights a timid low price by setting a first objective for 2030. It would be a question of using 5% of “green kerosene”-or Sustainable Fuel Aviation (SAF)- For civil aviation, pending more. The air sector is counting on a 70% reduction in emissions by 2050. A wishful wish? Recently, Ademe [l’agence française de la transition écologique] pointed out that in the event of a strong increase in air traffic (around 70%, as anticipated by professionals in the sector), it would be difficult to meet the demand for green kerosene without risking penalizing other sectors of activity. The “rebound effect” of air transport in the coming decades would also help erase these earnings.
Private jets and tax havens.
The world of business aviation is also that of tax havens, various traffic and drug traffickers. It is possible to get your fortune out of sight thanks to the private jets. Thus, in February 2022, Russia recorded more than 1000 private flights from the country, with a peak of activity of 300 movements between 24, the day of the Russian attack against Ukraine, and February 27. Flights have scattered around 52 countries, but France welcomed 105, mainly in Nice, Switzerland 104 (Geneva), the United Kingdom 71 (London). Vienna, Helsinki and Cyprus then come, then, outside Europe, Dubai and the Maldives. These figures, from the Flightradar24 site, deliver a cartography of the predilection places of oligarchs and other wealthy Russians.
Already in 2018, the European Union had sent a letter of formal notice to the United Kingdom for abusive VAT practices. The EU then aimed at the island of Man, in the Irish Sea and property of King Charles III, where more than 400 planes were recorded as business jets-double the number displayed by the United Kingdom. This classified the island in sixth in the world, behind the United States, by far number, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and Germany. Simplicity is remarkable: just land in Man with a new plane and stay there for two hours to be recorded, without any tax burden. Brexit has ended the wishes of the EU. For a British law firm, the EU’s release by the United Kingdom opened “A New Avenue of Opportunity” for Man Island.
Instruments of the illegal economy.
For a long time in the Caribbean, fishing boats and even submarines have been used for exporting drugs to the United States. But from 2019, the Coast Guards of the United States scored points against maritime drug trafficking from Latin America. Since then, private planes have taken over. Narcotrafiaries buy business planes that have lost their flight authorization to North America because of the increasingly restrictive noise standards that have accelerated the withdrawal of old business jets, even when they are in perfect condition flight. They are then sold in Latin America for around 1% of the new price. According to a survey by Washington Post traffickers are rich enough to abandon planes to $ 1 million and pay the pilots up to $ 500,000 per flight. In 2020, the Guateumtec Authorities recovered ten bodies of pilots killed during laundering and missed takeoffs.
Drug cartels are associated with important shipments and air controllers are corrupted by traffickers. In Mexico and Guatemala, planes use precarious tracks of the tropical forest. They fly at night at low altitude so as not to be spotted by military radars. Guided by drones, they arise, load the goods and redecolly illegally. On arrival, the United States offers a palette of 2,500 airports in general little monitored where 330,000 pilots exercise a powerful lobbying for freedom to travel without constraint, for example via the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA).
Between private jets and ordinary citizens, is the fracture consumed? In 2022, Greenpeace France filed a sand yachting in front of the Parc des Princes after the protrusion of Christophe Galtier, the PSG coach; To the question of a journalist asking him why his club did not take the train but the plane to go to Nantes, he replied that he was thinking “of a tank” … It is obvious that the private jets are a symbol ** which crystallizes – rightly so – the anger of NGOs that defend the climate. It is just as obvious that these criticisms slide like the water on the feathers of a duck for a handful of happy few.
