PODCAST GUARDIAN: The scandal of Britain’s ‘ghost’ flights

 

The scandal of Britain’s ‘ghost’ flights

At least 15,000 flights have taken off from UK airports since March 2020 at less than 10% capacity or even with no passengers at all. The Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, attempts to find out why

 

Presented by Michael Safi with Damian Carrington; produced by Courtney Yusuf and Rudi Zygadlo; executive producers Phil Maynard and Mythili Rao

 

Mon 7 Mar 2022 03.00 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/mar/07/the-scandal-of-britains-ghost-flights-podcast

 

When the Covid pandemic struck in 2020, one of the hardest-hit industries was aviation. Passengers, either confined to their homes under lockdown or fearful of getting stuck abroad, simply stopped flying. But as the Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, tells Michael Safi, something strange was going on: just because planes didn’t have any passengers, that didn’t necessarily mean they didn’t keep flying. These flights, with few or no passengers, are known as ‘ghost flights’.

 

According to newly revealed official figures, almost 15,000 ghost flights have departed from UK airports in March 2020 and September 2021. Flying is one of the most polluting and carbon-intensive activities people can undertake and ghost flights have angered those campaigning for action on the climate crisis. Carrington explains that some of these flights are a result of the long-established system forcing airlines to maintain flights in their airport ‘slots’ or risk losing their position to rivals. But this doesn’t explain those flights in the pandemic period when the slot system was paused. So why did airlines continue to fly heavily polluting empty flights?