UK: Labour explores plans to ban private jets from UK airports from 2025

Labour is exploring plans to ban private jets from UK airports from as early as 2025 should it win the election, in the party’s latest broadside against the super-rich. After a report revealed carbon emissions from the sector equivalent to 450,000 cars each year, Andy McDonald, the shadow transport secretary, said that billionaire users of private fossil fuel aircraft were damaging the climate and the party would consider a ban. He tweeted on Monday: “The multi-millionaires & billionaires who travel by private jet are doing profound damage to the climate, and it’s the rest of us who’ll suffer the consequences. A phase-out date for the use of fossil fuel private jets is a sensible proposal.” The warning shot came in response to a report from Common Wealth, a thinktank with close links to Jeremy Corbyn, and A Free Ride, a campaign group that called for a ban in Britain from 2025 to encourage the development of electric aircraft. McDonald said he would “examine these proposals closely and consult with industry on the introduction of a phase-out date for the use of fossil fuel private jets”. The Common Wealth report found that 128,000 flights between UK and EU airports were made using private jets in 2018, representing 6% of all UK air traffic. A further 14,000 trips were made to destinations outside Europe. It said the global heating impact of the flights was roughly 1m tonnes of CO2 equivalent each year, the same as the annual emissions of about 450,000 typical cars on Britain’s roads. A private flight from London to New York was equivalent to driving a typical UK car non-stop for four and a half years, it said.<br/>