As the world tuned in for the spectacle of the 2024 Super Bowl, a less glamorous but equally significant narrative emerged: the environmental impact of private aircraft travel.
Eight hundred eighty-two private jets descended into Las Vegas for the game, marking the second-highest turnout of these aircraft in Super Bowl history, according to flight analysis from business flight tracker WINGX.
The influx of high-flying luxury sparked scrutiny over the environmental responsibility of celebrities, putting Taylor Swift at the forefront of the discussion after a 5,000-mile flight from her concert in Tokyo to Las Vegas for the big game.
WINGX also looked at departures from nearby airports one day after the Super Bowl and compared the large numbers for those specific days to overall monthly average flight departures. This comparison revealed a surge in travel activity following the event.
These numbers emphasize the mass amounts of air travel large events can cause.
Myclimate, a Swiss nonprofit climate protection organization, used public domain flight trackers and social media posts from influencers and celebrities to list flights and collect their emissions data for 2023.
Despite her global prominence, Swift didn’t even crack their top 30, possibly because of the legal action surrounding tracking her flights.
Jack Sweeney, a computer science junior at the University of Central Florida, used to run the X (previously known as Twitter) account @CelebJets and numerous celebrity-specific accounts notorious for making private jet travels public in real-time.
Swift’s team sent Sweeney a cease-and-desist in December of 2023 if he did not stop tracking and analyzing her flight activity on his @taylorswiftjets X account. In 2022, Sweeney’s data put Swift at number one for private jet carbon emissions, according to the LA Times.
Myclimate only uses data that celebrities themselves publish. Their calculation method consists of celebrity social media posts linked to their emissions calculator.
As a result, the numbers may not be 100 percent accurate – the company only tracks trips made public by celebrities for ethical reasons, but significant emissions are still visible.
Rapper Travis Scott emerged as myclimate’s number one carbon dioxide emitter from private jet travel for 2023, emitting roughly 13,362,879 pounds. The average person globally emits 8,000 pounds each year, according to The Nature Conservancy, making Scott’s 2023 carbon footprint equal to that of approximately 1,670 people.
A 2023 report from the Institute for Policy Studies examined the emissions of multiple forms of transportation on a short trip from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport in Arlington, Virginia.
According to the report, a passenger on a private aircraft is responsible for emitting roughly 45 times the amount of carbon dioxide as a commercial aircraft passenger on the 210-mile flight.
In contrast to other atmospheric pollutants, carbon emissions, such as those released in air travel, remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, according to a 2023 Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) report.
Travis Scott flew 138 times within 2023. Some flights were more prolonged, from Munich, Germany, to Van Nuys, California. Others, such as a quick flight from Spa, Belgium, to Liege, Belgium, could have been accomplished in a 40-minute car ride.
However, the journey towards decarbonization remains filled with challenges that could span decades, according to Dr. Eric A. Davidson, a professor at the Appalachian Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
“There just aren’t many alternatives…you can’t have batteries big enough to run an airplane off of, but there’s some work being done on developing airplanes that run off batteries for short flights, which might be feasible in the near future, but as for long-haul flights no way,” said Davidson.
Some celebrities buy carbon offsets in attempts to mitigate high carbon emissions from private air travel. The Center for American Progress (CAP) describes carbon offsets as tradable rights that go towards activities that either remove carbon from the atmosphere or prevent future emissions.
Before her Eras Tour began, Swift experienced criticism because of the amount she would be traveling in her jet. Her publicist told The Associated Press that Swift purchased more than double the offsets necessary for all tour travel but didn’t provide further details.
Davidson says the issue with carbon offsets is that they may look good on paper, but the market is wildly unregulated and one often doesn’t know what they’re getting when buying them.
“It would be much more effective if the wealthy are paying a significant offset that we make it more targeted,” he said, “A tax that would support the development of alternative fuels for aviation would have a more direct impact than an offset where we are hopefully paying some farmer in the Amazon, Congo, or someplace in the U.S.”
The large carbon footprint of the wealthy elite has climate and inequality activists calling for greater taxation and regulation of private aviation.
According to the IPS, a higher tax on private jet passengers is the only way to yield revenue that equalizes the damage done. Private jet passengers only pay fuel surcharge taxes ($0.22 per gallon of jet fuel), whereas commercial passengers pay a 7.5 percent tax on their ticket price and a passenger facility charge.
The median net worth of a complete private jet owner is $190 million and the median net worth of a fractional private jet owner is $140 million, representing about 0.0008 percent of the world, says the IPS.