Few manufacture have been bear on more by the covid-19 pandemic than air travel ; with so few people flying for business organisation or pleasure , airline business have taken to flying “ spectre flights ” to ensure their takeoff and landing place slot at aerodrome .
Such flights — devoid of passengers but still burning up fuel on their phantom journey — becamea conversant termin the early days of the pandemic , but have stay in the breeze since covid-19 gripped the world two year ago . Ghost flights are a point of arguing in Europe this week , as airlines complain that they ’ll be forced to fly more of them as melodic line travel took another dip .
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohrtold the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitungthat the company was canceling more flight than expected this winter , a solution of theomicron variant surgingin Europe . And it would cancel even more if not for the mode airport allocate gates .
An empty Swiss AIr flight from Munich, Germnay to Zurich, Switzerland in March 2020.Photo: Sven Creutzmann/Mambo photo (Getty Images)
“ Because of the reduced demand in January , we even would have canceled considerably more flights . But in winter , we will have to acquit out 18,000 excess , unneeded flights , just to fasten our takeoff and landing rights , ” Spohr said , append that flights in Germany , Switzerland , Austria , and Belgium were particularly affected .
Lufthansa was n’t the only airline that said they ’d fly more ghost planes in the coming month . “ From now until March , we have to carry out 3,000 flights , mainly within Europe , ” Maaike Andries , a interpreter for Brussels Airlines , tell the Brussels Times . “ We would rather scrub them , and they should also be avert for the saki of the environment . ”
But Andries added that when the number of flights fall below the minimum needed to hold take - off and landing place rights , it ’s a problem , as “ such slots are essential for an airline . ” And there ’s the rub : Airlines are betting on the food market rally and do n’t want to fall behind their competitors . They ’re willing to burn the fuel in the short - term , even it come with catastrophic impingement on the climate .
Empty seats of a Lufthansa Airbus A340.Photo: Daniel Roland/AFP (Getty Images)
The airport trade trunk Airports Council International ( ACI ) EUROPE repugn European airlines ’ claims , though , and affirmed the European Commission ’s position on airport slot thresholds ( airlines must currently operate 50 % of slots or risk losing them , rather than the pre - pandemic 80 % standard ) . The 80 % doorstep wassuspended in March 2020 , and the 50 % door is mark to perish at the end of March 2022 , though that termination may be push to the end of summer 2022 , the Brussels Timesreported .
“ A few airlines are claim they are pressure to lead high volumes of empty flight so as to retain drome slot usage rights . There is absolutely no reasonableness why this should be the reality , ” enjoin Olivier Jankovec , the director - general of ACI EUROPE , in a press passing . “ Talk of spook flights , and of their environmental impacts , seems to hint at a end of the world scenario which has no property in reality . permit ’s stick to the vital task of recovering and reconstruct together . ”
After the 50 % threshold was announced , the conductor - full general of the International Air Transport Associationdescribedthe decision as “ out of touch with reality . ” The association , which exemplify nearly 300 air hose that comprise 82 % of global air traffic , had estimated external change of location would be about 34 % of 2019 levels by the end of 2021 — and that was when the omicron form was just a sparkle in the pandemic ’s eye .
It ’s not just an economic concern , but an environmental embarrassment . line travel is also unbelievably negative to the mood , with responsibleroughly 2.4 % of global carbon pollutionpre - pandemic . You could contend that the flights full of people at least had a purpose to get hoi polloi to and from a location , but the ghost flight salve slot at airports for some unforeseen future .
This week marks two eld since the World Health Organizationreporteda clump of pneumonia character that would come to be distinguish as covid-19 . And we ’re still fly empty sheet , go on the seats warm for industries that wo n’t full add up back until the pandemic is truly over .
More : I Made Peace With Flying Less
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