Private jets at Palma airport., | Majorca Daily Bulletin reporter

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Palma and Ibiza airports have ended the tourist season as the Spanish leaders in private jet flights and are in the ‘top ten’ European destinations for corporate jets, causing concern for environmentalists because of the high pollution they generate in proportion to the few people who use them. According to the report published by the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA), the two main Balearic airports share the ‘select’ group of the most used by jets with airports such as Paris, Nice, Olbia (Sardinia) and Geneva between May and August.

Both Ibiza and Mallorca airports are among the top ten airports with the most private flights in August and June, while Palma airport is the only airport in May and Ibiza the only one in Spain in July.
The report, based on data from the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol), reflects the average number of daily take-offs from both airports.

In the case of Palma, an average of 29.3 private jet take-offs per day were recorded in May, 33.8 in June and 31.6 private flights per day in August, which represents an increase of 4.2% in May and 3.4% in June, and a decrease of 5.5% in August compared to the same month in 2023. In Ibiza, 37.4 jets took off on average per day in June, 48.2 in July and 38.8 private flights in August, with a 0.2 % increase in June and reductions of 4.9 % in July and 2.7 % in August.

In overall figures, including take-offs and landings, Palma airport recorded 1,911 private flights in May (+9%), 2,069 in June (+3%), 2,295 in July (-5%) and 2,050 in August (-5%). The cumulative figure for the year to August is 12,392 flights, the same figure as the previous year. As for Ibiza airport, private jet departures and arrivals totalled 2,310 in June (0.2%), 3,103 in July (-5%) and 2,489 in August (-3%), with a cumulative figure for the year to August of 10,865, 2% less than the previous year.

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On the seasonality of private flights and their pollution, the environmental organisation Greenpeace warns in its latest report, ‘Luxury tourism and its impact’, that they emit ten times more CO2 per passenger per kilometre than a typical commercial aircraft and that the CO2 emissions of an average holiday jet flight (4.46 t) almost equal the annual energy-related CO2 emissions of an average European person in 2023 (5.37 t).

The report also points out that jets arriving in Ibiza and Menorca account for 68% of the CO2 emissions of private flights for the whole year during four summer months, the highest percentage of all the airports analysed, which in Mallorca stands at 49%. Greenpeace is calling for a ban on private flights as ‘the most unequal, divisive and polluting form of transport’, as is demanded by the Ibiza environmental platform Canviem el Rumb, made up of organisations such as Extinction Rebellion in Ibiza, whose spokesperson, Karen Killeen, lamented that the authorities “have no desire to promote this reduction and eventual elimination of jets”.

For Killeen, “it is not logical to promote measures to encourage public transport, to encourage people to recycle, to turn off the lights and to buy electric cars while promoting the unnecessary and frivolous emissions of private jets”. The activist also referred to the decision by Spanish airport authority not to provide more information on the movements of private jets at all airports in Spain.
“It has shocked me a lot, although on the other hand, it is recognising that it is bad news and that is why they are hiding it?” she said.

Finally, she pointed out that the Balearics “is a highly vulnerable area, where in addition to drought, heat waves and lack of water, the warming of the sea due to climate change is very dangerous. “We only have to look at what is going to happen in Florida with Hurricane Milton. This can happen to us if we continue to emit,” Killeen warned.