Exclusive: Another 35,000 flights operated empty, and weather activists called the revelations ‘shocking’
More than 5,000 empty passenger flights have flown to or from UK airports since 2019, The Guardian may reveal.
Another 35,000 advertising flights have operated nearly empty since 2019, with less than 10% of seats occupied, according to a study of data from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). That’s a total of about 40,000 “ghost flights. “
In one quarter, for example, 62 empty planes left Luton Airport for Poland, while in another, Heathrow saw 663 nearly empty flights to and from the United States. Both quarters were the Covid-19 pandemic.
Air generates more carbon emissions consistent with the hour than any other customer activity and is governed by a minority of ordinary citizens, making it a precedent for climate activists. They called the ghost flight revelations “shocking” and said a kerosene tax was needed and plans to expand airports deserve to be questioned. The UK government describes ghost flights as “harmful to the environment”.
The explanation for why ghost flights work remains unclear. Only airlines know the reason, but they do not publish information explaining the practice. of the pandemic. Other reasons cited by airlines come with Covid repatriation flights or aircraft repositioning. But that cannot be verified and activists said greater transparency was needed.
The new knowledge provides the maximum complete picture to date of the number of ghost flights in the UK, as previous knowledge only counted departures from overseas. It now includes arrivals from overseas and flights within the UK. The CAA will now publish this knowledge quarterly, following a series of requests for data via The Guardian.
“The publication of this knowledge is a step in the right direction, but we want more transparency to perceive why these inefficient and polluting practices persist and hold the main airline culprits accountable,” said Tim Johnson of the Aviation Environment Federation. Given the climate emergency, the revelation that so many nearly empty planes have burned fossil fuels and added to the accumulation of CO2 in the environment is shocking. “
A spokesman for the Department of Transportation said it would work with the CAA to monitor aircraft occupancy and seek greater transparency about the ghost flight factor.
The data shows an average of 130 absolutely empty flights consistent with the month since 2019. The number of empty flights remained at a similar point before, during and after pandemic travel restrictions, with the highest point of the moment in the current quarter of 2022. This suggests why airlines chose to fly empty planes was not like the effect of Covid on aviation.
Half of all empty flights were in the UK and the seven major airports accounted for two-thirds of the total, led by Birmingham with 1455, Luton (1307) and Bristol (758). The number of empty flights did not correlate with the total. Number of flights at the airport, suggesting that they would possibly reflect problems on express routes.
There has been an average of 1200 nearly empty ghost flights per month since the beginning of 2020, when the numbers increased at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Most of them, about 80%, went to or from overseas destinations.
Eight airports, among the UK’s busiest, accounted for around two-thirds of near-empty flights since 2019, led by Heathrow (10,467), Manchester (3309), Gatwick (2766) and Stansted (2197). Edinburgh and Glasgow had more than 1,500 empty flights.
Alethea Warrington, from climate charity Possible, said: “This shocking new knowledge about ghost flights is an example of how the aviation industry cannot be trusted to put its emissions on the right track to tackle the climate crisis.
“After a summer of record heat that melted the runways, this senseless waste of carbon through airlines opposes those that are feeling the brunt of our world’s warming,” he said. It’s time to start taxing kerosene to discourage emissions. “
An Airlines UK spokesperson said: “Millions of flights arrived and departed from the UK between 2019 and 2022, with a small fraction operating with few or no passengers and for a variety of operational reasons driven by the pandemic. “
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Airlines have refused to operate ghost flights to preserve slots. The 80:20 rule of thumb, which means that 80% of flights in one direction will need to operate to retain valuable slots, only applies to the busiest airports and has been suspended since the end of March 2020 due to the pandemic. It was reintroduced as a 50:50 rule in October 2021 and higher to 70:30 from the end of March 2022.
Some airlines have said that some ghost flights have led the pandemic to the shipment of Covid-related materials on passenger planes. However, CAA data records fewer than 300 flights since the beginning of 2020 with shipments but no passengers.
A spokesman for Birmingham Airport said: “Flight occupancy has decreased due to the pandemic due to travel restrictions. Meanwhile, flights to Birmingham included British nationals returning from ‘red list’ countries, EPP and Afghan refugees.
A spokesman for Luton Airport said the reasons for the increased number of ghost flights included Covid restrictions and regulatory requirements related to aircraft airworthiness and pilot licenses. “After the removal of all restrictions, the average number of passengers consistent with the flight returned to 88% this summer,” he said. Repositioning and aircraft maintenance were some of Bristol Airport’s reasons for its ghost flights.
Heathrow is the UK’s busiest airport and has recorded the highest number of near-empty flights. A Heathrow spokesperson said: “At a time [during the pandemic] when the industry was wasting billions, no operator would have flown an aircraft without it being commercially viable or operational necessity. As borders were closed to passengers, airlines switched to shipping operations, delivering important medical supplies to the country. “
Anna Hughes, from the cross-organisation Flight Free UK, said: “Putting tens of thousands of empty or nearly empty aircraft in the air during a climate crisis is a massive waste of money and an unnecessary source of emissions. He doesn’t care about people’s efforts” to reduce his own emissions. If it makes business sense for airlines, there’s something wrong with the business model.
The Airlines UK spokesperson said: “UK airlines are fully committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. In addition to filling our flights as much as possible, we are making ‘airplane zero’ a reality through modernizing our airspace to further reduce inefficiencies. at least 10% sustainable aviation fuel by 2030 and encourage the progression of zero-emission advertising aircraft. »
Johnson said: “A number of reasons have been put forward for near-empty flights during the pandemic, but the provision of data from 2019, a record year for airport passengers in the UK, highlights a wider problem. The data also shows that 50,000 aircraft arrived or departed from Heathrow and Gatwick in 2019 alone less than partially complete. This will have to cast doubt on those airports’ claims that they are complete and want to expand and their claims to respond to the urgency of the climate challenge.
All flights in CAA knowledge are passenger advertising flights and crew education flights are included. There have been thousands of ghost flights to oil rigs, but those were included in The Guardian’s analysis. CAA knowledge also lists Bournemouth Airport with 933 empty flights, however the airport said the vast majority of these were non-advertising flights made through a leasing company at the airport.