Taylor Swift, Lil Nas X should fly commercial instead of private

By Lara Williams

At this point in the climate crisis, we need everyone to start making planet-friendly choices. So why have we started shaming celebrities for flying commercially rather than via private jet?

When Lil Nas X, an American rapper, shared a video from a plane to the social media platform X, he was bombarded with messages asking him if he was “broke.” Meanwhile, Jennifer Lopez was spotted on a commercial flight — in first class, naturally — to Paris from Naples. Tabloid news organisation TMZ ran photos with the headline “JENNY FROM THE CABIN!!!” while social media users on Instagram accused her of “trying to look humble.”

These are some weird double standards. Celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Kylie Jenner have been widely criticised and ridiculed for their private jet use. It seems celebrities are damned if they do, damned if they don’t — something not lost on Lil Nas X.

In many ways, these incidents are part of the weird, transient world of social media in which talking points bubble up and then disappear. Most people are probably pleasantly surprised to see stars on their flights — though, it should be noted that only a small proportion of the global population flies at all. A study published in 2020 estimated that only between 2 per cent and 4 per cent of humans flew internationally in 2018, while 1 per cent caused half of the emissions from commercial aviation.

Private aviation takes that inequality and turns it up to 11. Private planes account for 2 per cent of total aviation emissions, but benefit just a handful of extremely wealthy people. Research from the think tank Institute for Policy Studies and campaign group Patriotic Millionaires found that the median net worth of a jet owner is $190 million, while fractional owners (those who own a share in a jet) have a median net worth of $140 million. These centimillionaires make up 0.0008 per cent of the global population. Private jets are five-to-14 times more polluting per passenger than regular flights, and 50 times more polluting than trains, according to analysis by research firm Transport & Environment (T&E).

So we really ought to be encouraging more celebrities to travel with the rest of us. Indeed, it’s not that unusual for famous people to hop on a standard flight: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Holland, Bill and Hillary Clinton and even the Prince and Princess of Wales are known to take standard aircraft. Yet demand for private jets is booming, spurred by a growth in high net-worth individuals.

Ideally, people would simply fly far less often. But, given that direct commercial flights exist for 72 per cent of private-aviation flights, getting wealthy frequent flyers to board regular planes would be an easy start.

The emissions saved by a small number of A-listers and billionaires switching to regular flights would be minute in comparison to the wider industry — and global emissions as a whole — but it could send a message. A couple of decades ago, Hollywood stars were being ridiculed for their embrace of the Toyota Prius, the first mass-produced hybrid vehicle. But they stuck with it, created a trend for conspicuous eco-consumption and helped pave the way for broader electric vehicle acceptance.

Likewise, a poll by Mercury Insurance found that 39.4 per cent of respondents said they’d be “more likely to engage in sustainable travel practices if celebrities and public figures reduced their use of private jets.” Whether that’s really the case or not would need some further investigation (words and actions don’t always tally), but it’s understandable that watching Taylor Swift repeatedly take off on her carbon-intensive private jet makes virtuous choices feel futile to the average person.

One key reason cited for the use of private jets is the desire for anonymity and privacy. That’s already largely possible — many airports offer the option of private terminals, invitation-only airport lounges and services for elites to get whisked through security before being chauffeured straight onto the plane.

Of course, there are benefits impossible to replicate. Commercial flyers are still beholden to a fixed schedule and routes — no doubt seen as inconvenient for a busy executive or superstar. Efforts to make commercial flights feel more exclusive may simply spur growth in the luxury sector (normies, meanwhile, deal with extra fees for basics, delays and crowded airports) while doing a limited amount for decarbonization.

Ultimately, regulating private jets will be the most important and effective way to control the segment’s emissions. Done in the right way, they could even help spur the innovations needed to decarbonise the rest of the aviation sector.

Currently, jets are taxed far less than their commercial counterparts. In the US, 17 per cent of flights managed by the Federal Aviation Administration are private jet flights, yet they only contribute 2 per cent of all taxes that fund the FAA. In the European Union, jets fall below the threshold for inclusion in the Emission Trading System while fuel is tax free — meaning they’re not paying a price on the carbon they’re emitting. T&E suggests introducing a ticket-and-fuel tax on conventional private jets, scaled with flight distance and aircraft weight. By 2030, regulators should ban private jets that aren’t powered by electricity, green hydrogen or sustainable aviation fuel.

This wouldn’t put billionaires off their private jets, but the extra money raised by taxes would be welcome funding for the challenge of decarbonising air travel. Perhaps the money could even be put to work improving and expanding high-speed rail — a far greener and frankly luxurious way to travel, with no risks of dangerous turbulence made more likely by the climate crisis.

Until governments decide to tackle private jet regulation, social pressure will be important. After all, celebrities are status-aware individuals — much of their power and income is drawn from their public status. I’d hazard a guess that one reason Swift continues to be addicted to her jets is that the criticism hasn’t impacted her album and ticket sales.

Criticism can backfire — as my colleague Chris Bryant pointed out in 2022, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault retreated to renting jets to avoid scrutiny — but it at least puts the pressure on. In the meantime, celebrities opting for the more sustainable options — a commercial flight, perhaps, or even better, the Eurostar — deserve to be left in peace.