Private aviation is making a growing contribution to climate change, with many being used as ‘taxis’ for distances less than 50km, according to a study.

In the study – led by Stefan Gossling, a professor at Linnaeus University in Sweden – the researchers aimed to quantify the contribution private aviation makes on climate change.

To do this they analysed the flight tracker data of more than 18.6 million private flights, which were flown by 25,993 registered business jet-type private aircraft over a four-year period from 2019 to 2023.

Analysing the CO2 emissions of each of these flights, they concluded that they cumulatively produced approximately 15.6 million tonnes of CO2 in direct emissions in 2023. This equates to approximately 3.6 tonnes of CO2 emitted on average per flight.

The researchers found that almost half (47.4%) of these private jet flights are shorter than 500km, with 4.7% making a journey of less than 50km. This reveals that these flights are effectively ‘taxis’, replacing...