When the super-rich took off on their private jets from Madrid and Bordeaux this year, did they have any sense of shame as they looked out at the wildfires below?
Private jets typify the callous indifference of the super-rich who profit from destroying the planet, then jet off to air-conditioned mansions to hide from the consequences.
Our friends at Inequality.org and the Institute for Policy Studies have given us access to a new tool that tracks private jets. As this week’s Bulletin reveals, climate disasters haven’t held rich polluters back.
Private jets in numbers
Plane awful. So far in 2026, there have been almost 2 million private jet flights, 8,906 on average per day. Emissions from these jets total 9.4 million tonnes of CO2, that’s more than the average annual emissions of 2 million people.
Or, if you prefer your stat in cow form…it’s equivalent to the belching and farting of 5.4 million cows.
Short haul. 22% of the flights travelled less than 300 km, 1 in 14 flights were less than 30 minutes. Have these people not heard of a train or a bus?
There’s been almost 3,000 London/Paris flights so far this year (13 per day), a journey that takes just over 2 hours on the Eurostar. 858 flights have done the Madrid/Barcelona trip which is just 2 ½ hours by rail.
Taking off. 2026 follows the ever-growing trend of private jets. Compared to 2025, there have been 6% more flights and emissions have increased by 7%. On a totally different note, the world is set to cross 1.5°C global warming within a few years.
A carry-on summer. You’d think that the wildfires in Europe, especially around Madrid and Bordeaux, would be a visceral deterrent for billionaire climate vandals. Yeah right!
Private jet departures around Madrid during the fires (July and August) increased by 12% compared to last year.
President Emmanuel Macron described France’s wildfires as the toughest situation the country has faced since World War II. That didn’t stop private jets during their summer. While the total departures from Bordeaux were down by a quarter compared to 2025, overall private jet flights increased in France by 4%.
Coolcation. England and Wales faced back-to-back heatwaves, so tourists have been heading to Scotland for a ‘coolcation’ – private jets arriving in Scotland from England were up by 16% in June and July compared to the same period last year. Global flights into Iceland were up by 19%.
Fear not, there’s a better solution, the rich are now building snow rooms for their mansions.
Having a ball. During the World Cup, the team at Private Jet Accountability Project tracked the increase in private jets around games. They found that over 90,000 private jets flew in and out of World Cup host cities.
In a flap. It’s fair to say billionaires don’t like it when they’re held to account. In the US, private jet owners can now anonymise their registration information, a longstanding demand of the wealthy elite. Bernard Arnault, CEO of the LVMH luxury goods company, sold his private jet to avoid being tracked. He said, ‘the result now is that no one can see where I go because I rent planes when I use private planes’.
They also probably don’t appreciate the successful campaigning efforts by colleagues at Oxfam Scotland, where the government has now committed to introduce a Private Jet Tax from April 2028. In 2024, the UK government increased air passenger duty by 50% for private jet users following pressure from civil society, including Oxfam.
Many thanks to the team at the Institute for Policy Studies and Private Jet Accountability Project for access to their fantastic database so that we could do this analysis.
Something to read/listen to
Read this article in the Lancet that finds that implementing wealth redistribution policies could mitigate the health impact of the current Official Development Assistance (ODA) defunding crisis.
Meet the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize winners who amassed evidence that upper-class people are more likely to steal candy from a child…and other kinds of unethical behaviour.
Read this article in DW on how climate change and food insecurity could fuel more conflicts.
Note on methodology
The code for the private jet tracker is available on Github. We used the private jet emissions trackers’ EUROCONTROL Fast Model using CO2e tank-to-wake only which is direct fuel combustion, for the date range 1 January 00:00 UTC to 13 August 00:59 UTC (unless states). The distances were calculated by using the great circle between the take-off and landing airport coordinates rather than the route actually flown. Global average CO2 emissions are 4.73 tonnes CO2. We assume 1.75 tonnes CO2e/cow/year.