![]() ![]() ![]() “They are scheduled flights that are poorly booked due to the pandemic. “Unnecessary flights are not empty or ‘ghost’ flights,” a spokesman for the airline told CNN. Lufthansa, meanwhile, says it’s doing its best to fill all its aircraft, but was struggling to balance Covid chaos with the need to hold onto its slots. Campaigner Greta Thunberg asserted that “Brussels Airlines makes 3,000 unnecessary flights to maintain airport slots.” In the UK, a petition was launched, appealing to the government to ground unoccupied flights. The analysis has triggered a torrent of outrage. ![]() On the basis that Lufthansa’s air traffic accounts for 17% of the European market, Greenpeace reckons the total number of Europe’s ghost flights would generate 2.1 million tonnes of CO2. The Greenpeace figures were extrapolated from a December interview with Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr in which he warned that Lufthansa Group was facing the prospect of 18,000 superfluous flights over the six-month winter season to retain its slots under European rules. The climate damage, claims the environmental group, is “equivalent to the yearly emissions of more than 1.4 million cars.” The problem is that, more than two years on, they’re still haunting the skies above us.Ī new report by the Guardian, based on a freedom of information request, found that at the end of last year there were around 500 “ghost flights” departing from the UK per month.Īnd in January 2022, analysis from Greenpeace claimed that more than 100,000 “ghost flights” would sail over European skies this winter. These were empty or near-empty planes traversing the skyline as airline schedules kept to their contractual obligations to fly. In the early days of the pandemic, when demand for air travel abruptly flatlined and international borders closed, “ghost flights” became a common phenomenon. ![]()
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