Why Empty ¡®Ghost Flights¡¯ Flying Over Europe Are Bad For Climate Crisis?
The climate crisis is a pervasive issue and action to combat climate change touches basically every single part of our lives, from what we eat, to how we dress, to how and where we go on holiday.
It¡¯s well known that one of the biggest culprits of carbon emission from human activities is the aviation sector. In fact, data from 2019, showed that taking a long-haul flight generates more carbon emissions than the average person in dozens of countries produces in a whole year.
Many of us trying to reduce our carbon footprints have, alongside other steps like going meat and dairy-free or ditching fast fashion, been cutting down the number of flights we take too.
What are ghost flights?
Ghost flights are defined as those with no passengers, or less than 10% of passenger capacity. The data from the Civil Aviation Authority includes only international flights leaving the UK and not arrivals, or any domestic flights.
Why is it problematic???
Flying is one of the most carbon-polluting activities people can undertake, and?ghost flights have angered those campaigning for action on the climate crisis.?Almost 15,000 ghost flights left the UK between the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 and September 2021, the Guardian revealed in February. The German airline Lufthansa said in January it would have to fly 18,000 ¡°unnecessary¡± flights by March.
The information, obtained through a freedom of information request by the Guardian, shows Heathrow, Aberdeen, Manchester, Stansted and Norwich were the top five airports for such flights during the period.
Why are these still operated?
So why on Earth are these still ongoing -- and what are aviation's stakeholders doing to disentangle themselves from the red tape that has ensnared the airlines into this climate-damaging mess?
The reason airlines continue to operate these expensive flights is because the industry is engaged in a slots game more high stakes and lucrative than anything you'll find in Las Vegas.
Even when passengers are staying away, airlines still need to protect their slots: their scheduled time on valuable routes.Slots are extremely precious assets for airlines. With more than 200 of the planet's busiest hubs operating at full capacity, demand for flights exceeds the availability of runways and space inside the terminals.
To manage this, capacity at congested airports is segmented into slots. These are the facility to land, disembark passengers, refuel, take on a new cohort of passengers and then take off again -- all within a specified and regulated time frame.
Carriers then plan their schedules based on slot availability at both ends of the route. To maximize revenue, the schedules have to align with demand -- early morning slots for business travelers traveling short-haul, same-day-return trips are highly prized.?
Such flights have been blamed on the system at busy airports whereby airlines must normally run 80% of their flights, empty or not, to retain their landing slots. The rule was suspended during the pandemic and reintroduced at 50% in October 2021, but that did not appear to have significantly changed the number of monthly ghost flights.
What effects will it have?
But, as highlighted by Greenpeace, this could amount to the additional release of up to 2.1 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere ¡ª or the same as 1.4 million diesel cars emit in a year.
Their UK Policy Director, Doug Parr, said: ¡°We know that the airline industry puts profit ahead of people and the planet but the absurdity of ¡®ghost flights¡¯ takes its recklessness to new heights.¡±?
