Earlier in January an English passenger from Derbyshire posted a video of his adventure on TikTok: he was the only passenger on a flight from London to Orlando. Since the start of the Covid crisis, the flow of passengers on airliners has been largely disrupted, yet they’re still flying. Why?
Airlines regularly negotiate with airports for take-off and landing slots. And to maximize the number of aircraft taking off in normal times, the European Commission has defined rules stipulating that airlines must use at least 80% of their slots. If they don’t, they risk losing them in subsequent negotiations. But with the Covid crisis and the risk of empty planes, the rules were relaxed: the threshold was only 50%, which is still not enough…
Lufthansa’s announcement has highlighted this problem and this ecological aberration. Yet the European Commission denies reports that planes are flying empty, and claims that the rules put in place in the wake of the Covid crisis protect airlines’ current slots.
Who’s telling the truth, who’s manipulating? The reality is that these empty flights are clearly taking place, and this is utter heresy given the ecological footprint of the aviation sector and the urgency of reducing it.
