AIRWEETS.com

The favorite topic nowadays seems to be CO2 monitoring. Carbon taxes are no longer a novelty. European regulations have already banned fuel tankering, a practice where aircraft carry excess fuel to avoid refueling at more expensive destinations, from/to destinations outside the European Union. Air operators are carefully monitored and taxed. Higher authorities expect reports and, on a monthly basis, reports that become statistics, statistics that establish trends, and trends that give birth to new rules.

What's the catch here?

We all know it. It is called climate change and how we, humans, mitigate the mess we create.

In aviation, and not only, this mostly means taxation for the produced CO2. It is not cheap. Operators fight to find solutions for several things: cheaper fuel, lower consumption, optimized routes, and a lower CO2 ratio per transported passenger. The latest is similar to carpooling – more people traveling to the same destination – less CO2 emissions per passenger. This is why aircraft occupancy is crucial to lower the CO2 ratio per passenger. Even if there are differences in the fuel burn, an empty aircraft is not productive for an airline and emissions per passenger skyrocket. This is valid for a normal airline. However, some operators gladly offer an entire aircraft for only one passenger – the corporate airlines. In this game, as long as the client pays, emissions don't play an important role. But are they? Competition in this market is more fierce than between orthodox airlines. Each VIP operator tries to offer the best price, service, and aircraft type, trying also to make a profit. The same taxes and fuel prices apply to corporate airlines, too.

But in the general green gas emissions mayhem, how much of it does corporate aviation really produce? What's its contribution to the general CO2 picture?

Depends how we want to look at it.

Corporate aviation is not a new branch of aviation. As a concept, it was launched in the first days of aviation. The only thing that made a difference was the number of business jets. There were only a few until the '90s. Emissions-wise, the industry was comparable to a single limousine driven in the general traffic of a big city. Things changed after that. Business grew, economies developed, more people afforded corporate flying, and the industry boomed.

Where is it situated nowadays? How many limousines joined the general city traffic, and how much do they contribute to the general smog?

The same statistics, created from the reports the operators submit, tell us where we are.

According to them, the main CO2-producing players are the following:

1. The energy-producing industry, which includes power plants and other energy generation facilities, comes in the first place in terms of CO2 emissions.Transportation comes on the second – this means cars, one and a half billion of them. This figure doesn't include commercial vehicles, such as trucks and buses.

2. Construction

3. Agriculture

4. Industry

Many other industries.

And somewhere at the bottom of the list is aviation, which is part of the transportation industry, but we kept it separate to better understand it.

Statistics agree that aviation's percentual contribution to global CO2 emissions is 2-2.7% of the total. Estimates indicate that it may rise to 22% by 2050, but this depends on many factors.

At length, out of the total global commercial aviation emissions, according to a paper published by doi.org, corporate aviation contributed in 2023 with  1.7% to 1.8%. This means 1.8% out of the 2.7% total. Not too bad, it may seem. But per capita, per average trip, this equivalates with the total carbon emissions of an average family for between one to three months, or the fuel quantity burned by an average car to cover a 10000km distance (one year of average driving),  and the figures are increasing.