Spirit Airlines has announced it is going out of business after 34 years. The ultra-low-cost airline known for its bright yellow planes and deep discount fares said Saturday it has started winding down operations.
A single plane emits a lot, but if you are not using a private jet - it enjoys the same benefit as other forms of ‘public transport’: emissions are shared among multiple passengers. Especially if you are in economy, in a packed plane there are a lot of people to correct for that.
Furthermore, emissions for planes are far from uniform for the distance travelled: a disproportionate amount of emissions occurs as take-off.
A short or long haul flight is more efficient than an ICE car [source]. This concerns efficiency though - not total emissions - so if you use a car, but travel a shorter distance, emissions will still be less. Also, this source is from 2023, things will probably have shifted around a bit.
The elephant in the room is obviously the “domestic flight” emissions number sitting proudly at the top of the list. Based on the average length of a UK domestic flight and this source, that’s 20% of all global commercial flights, and just under 50% are under 500 nautical miles/926km, which is still on the highly inefficient end of the spectrum. But then you realize that it only accounts for about 42 million weekly seats when estimates are much closer to 100 million, then you realize it’s 2009 data and you don’t want to deal with this rabbit hole…
That second chart you provided is… tantalizing, and just like my own source I’d much rather have access to the data than the charts they’ve made with it, because napkin math based on their red line falls shy of any sort of accuracy.
If we just rely on the provided numbers, new European internal combustion vehicles are way more efficient than short and long haul flights (cars’ grams of CO2/km should should be divided by ~1.5, which is the US/EUR average vehicle occupancy rate), and the average is dragged down by older ICE cars. New U.S vehicles lose the efficiency battle comically and are about as bad as ultra short haul business flights, lmao. Thanks for the link.
A single plane emits a lot, but if you are not using a private jet - it enjoys the same benefit as other forms of ‘public transport’: emissions are shared among multiple passengers. Especially if you are in economy, in a packed plane there are a lot of people to correct for that.
Furthermore, emissions for planes are far from uniform for the distance travelled: a disproportionate amount of emissions occurs as take-off.
A short or long haul flight is more efficient than an ICE car [source]. This concerns efficiency though - not total emissions - so if you use a car, but travel a shorter distance, emissions will still be less. Also, this source is from 2023, things will probably have shifted around a bit.
The elephant in the room is obviously the “domestic flight” emissions number sitting proudly at the top of the list. Based on the average length of a UK domestic flight and this source, that’s 20% of all global commercial flights, and just under 50% are under 500 nautical miles/926km, which is still on the highly inefficient end of the spectrum. But then you realize that it only accounts for about 42 million weekly seats when estimates are much closer to 100 million, then you realize it’s 2009 data and you don’t want to deal with this rabbit hole…
That second chart you provided is… tantalizing, and just like my own source I’d much rather have access to the data than the charts they’ve made with it, because napkin math based on their red line falls shy of any sort of accuracy.
If we just rely on the provided numbers, new European internal combustion vehicles are way more efficient than short and long haul flights (cars’ grams of CO2/km should should be divided by ~1.5, which is the US/EUR average vehicle occupancy rate), and the average is dragged down by older ICE cars. New U.S vehicles lose the efficiency battle comically and are about as bad as ultra short haul business flights, lmao. Thanks for the link.