Business aviation not only gets bad press, but now it looks bad too. While critics follow one another on the climate record of the sector – in its latest report, published on March 30, Greenpeace calls for the“ban on private jets” –, activity has fallen by 10% in the past six months compared to the same period a year earlier, according to Bertrand d’Yvoire, president of the European Business Aviation Association; EBAA).
The most severe salvo against the sector therefore comes from Greenpeace. According to the NGO’s counts, “private jet emissions have more than doubled between 2021 and 2022, exceeding average annual CO2 emissions2 than 550,000 inhabitants of the European Union”. Unbearable, according to the organization, at a time when Europe is facing “heat waves” and at one “winter drought”. According to Greenpeace, 55% of the 572,806 business jet flights recorded in 2022 were trips of less than 750 kilometers. Distances that could very well have been covered by train, according to the association.
For Mr. d’Yvoire, these criticisms fall flat. “The very vigorous recovery of 2022 has calmed down a lot”, he says. In practice, private jet activity has seen an upturn during the two years of the Covid-19 pandemic “with the arrival of a leisure clientele that we did not normally have”, specifies the president of the EBAA. Passengers who returned to regular airlines as flights resumed and destinations were relaunched. “We have not returned to pre-Covid levelshe laments. We are only reaching 80% to 90% of our 2019 activity.”
“An eco-contribution”
According to Bertrand d’Yvoire, business aviation would therefore only have benefited from “two small bubbles, in 2021 and 2022”, which then erupted. Since then, the sector has regained “its base, its traditional clientele made up of 80% businessmen”adds the boss of the EBAA. “Business aviationhe recalls, they are not billionaires who steal for their leisure, they are businessmen. And 80% of airports connected by business aviation are not served by airliners. »
Ulcerated by the ban request made by Greenpeace, the EBAA is not more lenient with Clément Beaune, the Minister Delegate in charge of transport, who would like to tax business aviation. A ” eco-contribution » with symbolic virtues which would take effect from 2024. “But symbols, in a moment of collective effort, matter”, added the minister, Thursday, April 6, at the National Assembly. A desire that annoys the EBAA. “The Minister of Transport does not know business aviation. He has a caricatural vision of it »denounces Mr. d’Yvoire.
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