Emission Impossible – Private Jets as Mega-Polluters

“Just 1% of people cause 50% of global aviation emissions…. Private jets have a disproportionate

impact on the environment. In just one hour, a single private jet can emit two tonnes of CO2.

The average person in the EU emits the equivalent over the course of an entire year.”

May 2021 Study by Brussels-based Transport and Environment

Anyone unfortunate enough to live by a high-traffic airport faces serious noise and even the risk of an aircraft crash, however rare those incidents might be. Risk fades with distance, and noise can be moderated with well-insulated windows and buildings. Still, folks really do not like living near those big airports, and property values reflect that reality. Hong Kong moved its center-city airport to a nearby, man-enhanced island, Japan closed its center-city facility for a distant venue often hours away, and Denver shifted its main operations to a more distant ultra-modern facility. Congestion – in the air and in vehicular traffic – is just one price we pay for those large airports (including a growing number of commercial satellite airports) in major urban areas.

But even as commercial air traffic puts pressure on our transportation infrastructure, the rise of private jets (individual and corporate) has exploded in lockstep with the widening income inequality gap. For the mega-wealthy, the inconvenience of flying commercial – quite declassee among so many jetsetters – is not hindered by the high costs of leasing or owning a jet, parking and landing fees, maintenance, insurance, salaries of flight staff or even the exorbitant price of jet fuel. You just have to look at the fleet of private jets at McCarran Airport in Vegas every weekend or at regional airports where mega-rich gather for elite conferences.

Or you can visit general aviation airports in or near upscale communities. In Los Angeles, for example, so many of those expensive private jets are housed at Santa Monica Airport (look, there’s Tom Cruise landing one of his aircraft!) or Van Nuys Airport in the San Fernando Valley (is that Kylie Jenner getting into her jet?). But as real estate values have skyrocketed in chi chi Santa Monica, the local upscale residents protested for years about having that high-traffic, general aviation facility in their midst. After years of such stormy moments, lengthy negotiations with the FAA and lots of litigation, a settlement was reached with the FAA to shut down that Santa Monica Airport and replace it with a big park… on December 31, 2028, shortening the main runway in the interim. Obviously, that will push these mega-rich jetsetters to crowd other regional airports. Especially Van Nuys.

But there is more than noise and safety risks that we have to factor into our approach to private jet travel. As the above quote illustrates, there is one cost that these private jet owners are not paying: the price on climate change that their inefficient travel habits wreak on the rest of us. Or just plain nasty air pollution.

Columnist Carolina Miranda, writing for the October 20th Los Angeles Times, starts with a harsh example: “‘You wanna take mine or yours?’ That was Kylie Jenner’s caption for a July Instagram post that showed her and boyfriend Travis Scott in the middle of a make-out sesh between a pair of private jets… It was a simple question. The response was withering.

“Jenner’s post was greeted by an avalanche of criticism about the ways the 1% are incinerating the environment. Time magazine included her in a roundup of the most egregious celebrity overconsumption. An article in the Washington Post described celebrity jet usage as ‘a climate nightmare,’ adding to the pillory other jet owners such as Taylor Swift and Drake. The best response, however, was a TikTok from user @unabella3 that shows a squadron of military jets blasting through the sky along with the deadpan caption: ‘The Kardashians on their way to Starbucks.’

“These reactions aren’t simply haters hating… For most of us, the story of Jenner’s jet flaunting might elicit a flash of outrage, followed by the helplessness that comes with thinking about our ongoing climate catastrophe, a problem so vast and so systemic that it can feel practically abstract.

“For people who live in the environs of the Van Nuys Airport, however, it is not abstract. In preparation for a flight, a single jet might run its engines for more than an hour on airplane ramps separated from residential streets by little more than a low wall and chain-link fence. While the Jenners of the world selfie on the tarmac, residents who live yards away are eating their dust — or, more accurately, their ultrafine particles (a pollutant emitted during jet operations that has been linked to various cardiovascular and respiratory conditions). Eliminating a few private jet takeoffs isn’t going to change the fate of the planet. It would, however, improve life on the ground for communities in the vicinity of VNY (as the airport is known by its call letters).”

What’s worse for this inland airport, it lacks even the ocean breezes that at least mitigate pollution at Santa Monica’s facility. But richer Santa Monica residents found a way to rid themselves of even that irritant. Yet Van Nuys is seeing a rapid increase in private aircraft, even before Santa Monica closes for good. “‘I’ve lived here since 1986 — never had a problem,’ says Sue Steinberg, who lives just off Hayvenhurst [the street adjacent to Van Nuys Airport]. But over the last several years, she says, it has become intolerable. ‘The fumes are unbelievably bad’… One area resident, who declined to give me her name because she was planning to move out of the neighborhood, says jets have upended daily life. ‘I can’t let my son out,’ she says. ‘When the fumes come out, I have to bring him inside.’” LA Times.

The income inequality issue is usually viewed from a different lens, often the movement of the ratio of CEOs to the earnings of their average workers (from around 50 to 1 in the 1960s to close to 400 to 1 today). But conspicuous consumption hurts us all in so many ways that perhaps it is time to address the most harmful aspects of the mega-wealthy – from a willingness to pay huge fines to water their lawns in a drought to the environmental slam of private jet use. Time is not on our side. Stop the toxic habits!

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am tired of the misuse of the words “creeping socialism” to allow the most horrific impacts on our world by people who just plain do not care, because their money buys them an exemption from responsibility for their actions.