There were an average of 500 “ghost flight” international departures per month from UK between October and December 2021
In February, Alex Sobel MP obtained information from the DfT and CAA, by asking a parliamentary question, on “ghost flights.” There had been almost 15,000 “ghost flights” that took off from the 32 UK airports between March 2020 and September 2021. That only includes international departures, not the arrivals or any domestic flights. There were an average of 760 ghost flights a month over the period. Now more recent data shows that, despite more air travel and fewer Covid restrictions, almost 500 “ghost flights” a month departed from the UK airports between October and December 2021. A ghost flight is one with fewer than 10% of passenger load capacity. The government relaxed the “use it or lose it” slot use rule during the pandemic, so airlines no longer had to use 80% of their slots. It was then increased to 50% use and from 27th March 2022 it reverted to 70% use. Though some low capacity flights can be explained, the vast majority cannot be justified, in terms of carbon emissions. The government needs to review its policy on ghost flights, especially the aviation industry claims it is aiming to be “net zero” for carbon.
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Ghost flights from UK running at 500 a month, data reveals
Exclusive: MPs criticise ‘climate-degrading’ and ‘nefarious’ practice of flying near-empty planes
By Damian Carrington Environment editor (The Guardian) @dpcarrington
Thu 31 Mar 2022
Almost 500 “ghost flights” a month departed from the UK between October and December 2021, data has revealed.
The information, obtained through a freedom of information request by the Guardian, shows Heathrow, Aberdeen, Manchester, Stansted and Norwich were the top five airports for such flights during the period.
Ghost flights are defined as those with no passengers, or less than 10% of passenger capacity. The data from the Civil Aviation Authority includes only international flights leaving the UK and not arrivals, or any domestic flights.
Flying is one of the most carbon-polluting activities people can undertake, and ghost flights have angered those campaigning for action on the climate crisis. Almost 15,000 ghost flights left the UK between the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 and September 2021, the Guardian revealed in February. The German airline Lufthansa said in January it would have to fly 18,000 “unnecessary” flights by March.
Such flights have been blamed on the system at busy airports whereby airlines must normally run 80% of their flights, empty or not, to retain their landing slots. The rule was suspended during the pandemic and reintroduced at 50% in October 2021, but that did not appear to have significantly changed the number of monthly ghost flights.
Tim Johnson, of the Aviation Environment Federation, said: “UK airline average occupancy grew significantly in the last six months of 2021, although November’s peak at around 70% is still significantly below the 86% achieved before the pandemic. But this hasn’t altered the number of ultra-low occupancy flights in our skies each month.
“If changing market fortunes can’t solve this problem then the government must act to do so,” he said. “Its recent claim earlier that aviation can be net zero by 2050 while accommodating a 70% increase in passenger numbers (from 2018 levels) stretches belief when there are such obvious examples of inefficiency in the current system. Fixing these should be a priority.”
The government regulates aviation but no data is made public on the number of ghost flights. Only the airlines know the true number, but have not provided this data when asked by the Guardian.
“The public deserves transparency,” said Sarah Olney the Lib Dem MP and transport spokesperson. “They are not getting it from an industry keeping this nefarious practice hush-hush, and ministers have to share the blame for this serious vacuum of accountability. A government review into ghost flights is long overdue.”
Alex Sobel, a Labour MP and chair of the net zero all-party parliamentary group, said: “Although international travel has recovered somewhat, and there’s no need to fly empty planes to hubs or for maintenance, airlines don’t seem to have given up their climate-degrading practice of ghost flights.”
A parliamentary petition calling for an end to such flights has been signed by 14,000 people.
The Department for Transport said: “We acted swiftly [during the pandemic] to prevent empty aircraft needing to fly to retain their slots, however some flights may operate with low passenger numbers for a whole range of reasons, including carrying key workers or vital cargo.”
Airlines UK, the trade body for UK-registered airlines, said: “The [CAA] figures reflect two things – refreshed travel restrictions to combat the Omicron variant, leading to flights from destinations like Morocco and the far east bringing UK travellers home. Passenger aircraft have also been widely used as freighters during the pandemic, and even though these flights are carrying essential freight and supplies, including PPE, they would be inaccurately classed as ‘ghost flights’ in this analysis.”
See earlier:
Ending “ghost flights” would be one of the simplest ways to cut UK aviation CO2 – government not keen to help
The UK government has produced a (predictably bland, uninformative, unhelpful) response to the petition asking for an end to the slot use rules that encourage airlines to fly “ghost flights.” ie. empty planes or those with under 10% full. During the worst periods of Covid, the 80:20 slot use rule was removed. Now the rule is 70% use. That still has the effect of making airlines fly more planes than necessary, with a low load factor, just to hang onto the slot. Data has now revealed that 15,000 ghost flights flew from UK airports between March 2020 and September 2021. Shockingly, in 2019, aviation accounted for 8% of all UK emissions, and it shows no sign of slowing soon. The global industry may be slowly improving its efficiency, by about 2% a year, but passenger growth still surges ahead. There is an urgent need to cut the CO2 from air travel, and that can only mean fewer flights. There are no amazing tech solutions that will reduce aviation emissions to any significant extent, for decades (if ever). The really “low hanging fruit” of cutting aviation emissions is not encouraging unnecessary flights that are almost empty. Ghost flights need to be ended. Fast.
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Reply to a Parliamentary Question shows during 18 months of Covid, around 15,000 “ghost flights” flew from UK airports
It has been difficult to obtain the data, from airlines, of the number of flights they operate that have no passengers, or are under 10% capacity. These are termed ghost flights, and are a terrible unnecessary source of carbon emissions. Now MP Alex Sobel has asked a parliamentary question, replied to by Robert Courts (Aviation Minister), giving some recent date for the UK. The responses, through the DfT and CAA, was that almost 15,000 “ghost flights” took off from the 32 UK airports between March 2020 and September 2021. Heathrow was top, with 4,910 ghost flights in that 18 month period. Manchester and Gatwick were the next highest. [Link to the data ] There were an average of 760 ghost flights a month over the period, although the data covered only international departure and not domestic flights. During the pandemic the slot use rules that had required 80% of slots to be used were completely suspended. Airlines did not have to operate flights to retain the slots, but nonetheless flew about 14,470 ghost flights. This was partly as demand for flying was so low, planes flew with just a handful of passengers.
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