'Ghost flights' passing through Scotland's airports make up just a tiny fraction of aviation industry’s carbon emissions problem – Anna Hughes

Perhaps the biggest sticking point is the sense of injustice: at a time of climate emergency, when we are being told we need to radically reduce our emissions, why are planes flying empty, spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, just to retain their landing slots?

Actually, planes have been flying empty for years, for various reasons including training and repositioning, long before the pandemic brought it to people’s attention. But now that many people are choosing to fly less to limit their emissions, it feels that their efforts are pointless if the plane is going to fly anyway. Somehow the principles of supply and demand don’t seem to apply to the airline industry.

A Flight Free UK petition in 2022 asked the UK Government to change the rules that require airlines to use their landing slots – an airline’s most valuable asset – in order to keep them. The petition reached over 10,000 signatures in a month, showing the public’s strength of feeling on this.

The government’s response was to talk about the ‘Jet Zero’ plan – a kind of net-zero strategy for aviation. It involves technology, sustainable fuel and offsetting as a way to address aviation emissions. The trouble is, the technology isn’t ready yet, and is unlikely to be commercially available for years. So-called ‘sustainable' aviation fuel still generates greenhouse gases, and in some cases is worse, on balance, for the climate, because of the production process.

Offsetting is also problematic. There is a reluctance to look at processes and consumer behaviour, even though reducing the amount we fly is the one thing that is actually guaranteed to reduce emissions from aviation right now.

Airlines UK is right when it points out that of the 500,000 aircraft movements to and from Scottish airports per year, ghost flights make up only a tiny percentage. The reality is that all flights harm the climate, not just empty ones, so if we really want to address aviation’s emissions problem, we simply need to fly less.

Anna Hughes is director of Flight Free UK, a behaviour change charity that reduces emissions from aviation by challenging people to fly less. flightfree.co.uk