The use of private aircraft in the European Union increased sharply last year. This is the conclusion of a study carried out by environmental consultant CE Delft on behalf of Greenpeace.
In 2022, the total number of private flights in the EU will have increased by 64 percent compared to the previous year. CE Delft does point to the corona rules, which made it difficult to travel in both 2020 and 2021.
The increase in the number of private flights is even greater in the Netherlands than the overall increase in the EU. According to the report, private aircraft took off 12,176 times from Dutch airports in 2022. That is an increase of 87 percent compared to the previous year.
The most popular European route for private flights last year was Paris-London, followed by Nice-London and Paris-Geneva. London-Amsterdam was good for tenth place in the European ranking.
The figures used by CE Delft come from Cirium, a company that specializes in aviation data. They do not go back further than 2020, but judging by previous reports from CE Delft itself, it seems that the number of flights in 2022 was also significantly higher than in 2019, the year before the pandemic. However, because a different method was used, a proper comparison is not possible.
