Private jets - are they really as bad as people say?

Hello everyone,

On social media, they will be an uproar every few months because some celebrity used a private jet to get somewhere. Today, I'll be talking about whether these flights really are as bad as they seem or whether social media is just making a big deal out of nothing.

Emissions: private jets vs public flights

Private jets are 5 to 15 times worse than commercial flights per passenger. Also, private flights are normally not 4 hours long, some of them are only 20 to 30 minutes! These flights are worse because taking off and landing emit more greenhouse gases. With a flight that's only 20 or so minutes, you've only got 10 minutes at the most where you're actually flying 'normally'.

So when it comes to emissions, private jets are very bad for the environment.

Morals

You can't talk about private jets without talking about the morals involved. The first moral problem with private jets is the people who use them. People who can afford private jets are usually part of what is known as 'the super rich'. That in itself is not a problem. The problem is that a lot of these people publicly say that they are going to invest so many millions of dollars towards the climate crisis. This however is clearly not on their minds when they get into their private jets.

The second thing is again to do with money. Basically, private jets can cost up to 90 million US dollars. That money could easily be put towards things like refugee centres, children's education, starving children in poorer parts of the world and so on.

We can conclude, private jets are indeed very bad for the environment, in terms of CO2 emissions as well them being a simple waste of money that could be put into something else. This is not to say that long flights with hundreds of passengers are good, but owning a private jet is by far worse.

My personal opinion:

I would say in conclusion that private jets are just generally terrible, especially for flights under an hour. They are just another thing that's destroying our planet.

Your Green World Blog Team💚

Image:
This image, owned by Istvan (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Sources:
https://www.deseret.com/u-s-world/2022/8/4/23287843/everything-you-need-to-know-about-private-jets-cost-gas-emissions-mileage
https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/private-jets-can-the-super-rich-supercharge-zero-emission-aviation/