Three quarters of private jets pay same rate of tax as passengers on standard flights or no tax at all, new report finds
A new report for climate charity Possible assesses the recent growth in the private jet flight market since the pandemic hit, along with the levels of Air Passenger Duty paid on these flights. The researchers find that the UK private jet market has grown rapidly in recent years, with one in ten planes departing UK airports now a private aircraft. During the early months of the pandemic this was even higher, with nearly one in four flights being a private jet.
The new analysis compares the tax levied on private flights to the greenhouse gas emissions generated by these journeys, enabling the authors to produce values for the implicit rate of tax paid per tonne of emissions on private jet flights. The report compares this to the equivalent effective rate of tax per tonne of emissions for seats on ordinary commercial flights. It finds that first class passengers pay less per tonne of pollution (carbon dioxide equivalent or CO2e) than business class passengers, who pay less per tonne of pollution than economy class passengers. Private jet passengers pay the lowest rate of all in proportion to the emissions they produce. This is because even the higher rate of APD is set at a very low level that does not correspond to the emissions from private jet flights.
For example, on a flight from London to New York, the implicit carbon price per tonne of emissions is £96 for a passenger in economy class, £72 for a business class passenger, and just £52 for a first class passenger. A passenger making the same flight by private jet would pay just £13 per tonne in a medium size private jet and £24 in a large private jet.
Due to the structuring of air passenger duty and exemptions from the tax for private jets below 5.7 tonnes, some private jets fall outside the tax entirely while others pay only the standard rate, despite producing much higher emissions per passenger than ordinary airline flights.
In addition, the rate of tax levied on private jet flights compared to the cost of those flights is much lower than that levied on ordinary passengers. The report calculates the proportion of a private jet ticket price which is paid in tax for an example route between London and Paris to be less than 2%, which is an order of magnitude smaller than the effective rate of tax paid on the ticket price of ordinary flights (43% for economy class and 23% for business class).
Possible also posed as a potential private jet customer, to investigate the claims private jet operators make to their customers about what they are doing to tackle their environmental impact. The ‘mystery shopper’ investigation found that some private jet companies inaccurately promote their flights as “guilt-free flying” or “carbon neutral”, with some operators offering unnecessarily large aircraft for flights for a small number of passengers, despite this producing much higher emissions.
Possible is calling for the rapid introduction of a ban on the sale of private jets in the UK, and of private jet flights powered by kerosene using UK airports, with an end-date of 2030 at the latest. Until this phase out takes effect, private jets should be taxed at a much higher rate to reflect their very high emissions.
This could be done by ending the exemptions which currently remove most private jet flights from the higher rate of APD, along with introducing a new super-high rate of tax for the largest and most polluting private jets.
A tax on jet fuel should also be introduced to discourage the use of large planes for small numbers of passengers. The report highlights that unlike the majority of commercial flights, most private jet flights could in theory be carried out by fully electric jets, but the industry has been slow to introduce these. The charity argues that, by providing regulatory certainty with a phase-out date for fossil-fuelled private jets, policymakers would send a clear positive signal to the market to accelerate the development of small electric passenger jets.
Alethea Warrington, senior campaigner at climate charity Possible, said:
“The impacts of the climate crisis are already harming people around the world who will never set foot on a plane, let alone a private jet. We need urgent action to cut emissions -and it makes sense to start with the emissions which are most wasteful and least beneficial.
“It is hard to imagine emissions which are more excessive than those from private jets, which often depart with just one or two passengers sitting in a huge, virtually empty plane, which then flies its return journey with no passengers at all. Decades of missed environmental targets show that this industry isn’t going to sort itself out without regulation. So we need action from the government, and a ban on private jets.”
Rob Bryher, campaigner at Possible, said:
“I was shocked by what I found when I posed as a private jet customer. There was confusion, contradiction and misleading claims about what can be done to reduce emissions from private jet flights - which, actually, is almost nothing until completely new designs of aircraft are available. Some companies even told me that they can offer “carbon-neutral” or “guilt-free” flights, so I wouldn’t have to worry - while others tried to “upsell” me a flight in a huge plane that could carry dozens of people! We know an emissions-free flight isn’t possible today, and without meaningful policy action, it never will be. It’s clear that private jet companies either don’t care about their impact on our climate, or they simply don’t have a clue.”
Robert Palmer, executive director of Tax Justice UK, said:
"It's a big problem that private jet users pay such low levels of tax, especially when they're responsible for such high carbon emissions. Politicians should make sure that private jet users pay a fair price for the impact that they're having on the climate. This needs to be part of a wider transformation of our tax system to help us to tackle the threat of climate and environmental breakdown."
ENDS
Notes to editors:
For the full report, entitled Jetting away with it: How private jets pollute the most and pay the least, please see here.
For media enquiries and further information please contact press@wearepossible.org or 07402 197023.
Alethea Warrington, senior campaigner at climate charity Possible, is available for comment. Please contact press@wearepossible.org for more information.
Possible is a UK based charity that brings people together to take positive, practical action on climate change. Combining individual and local actions with larger systemic change, we connect people with each other, and communities with ways to address the climate crisis. Wearepossible.org.
Possible’s aviation work includes a campaign for fair demand management via a frequent flyer levy. The charity is also challenging the government’s expansion-based Jet Zero Strategy for aviation in court, via a judicial review.
The term “private plane” here includes both private jets and private turboprop aircraft.