YouRegulatory nonsense and an ecological scam. Like the European Union, the United Kingdom has not been spared the phenomenon of “ghost planes”, which are carrying out their voyages at 10% or even empty of their capacity. according to disclosure Guardian500 ghostly flights took off from UK airports every month between October and December 2021. And these figures only include international flights departing from the UK, not taking into account arrivals.
Last February, the same newspaper revealed that 15,000 such flights had taken off from the United Kingdom since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. These flights are operated by companies wishing to have their slots in major airports, busy. These slots must be used by the company subject to the penalty of having lost at least 80%. Suspended during the pandemic, this rule was reintroduced in October 2021. However, no significant decline in the practice of ghostly flights has been reported since then.
Angry UK MP
The exact number of phantom flights is not made public and is known only by the companies concerned. Not only this, British MPs are demanding transparency. Sarah Olney, of the Liberal Democrats, calls for “a government investigation”. A Labor MP also said, “Even if international traffic has been restored and there is no need to fly planes empty, companies have not considered the practice to be harmful to the climate.”
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For its part, the trade body that brings together British Airlines believes these figures reflect two developments: “new travel restrictions aimed at countering the Omicron version” and “the fact that that commercial aircraft have been widely used as cargo during the pandemic”. Thus, “even though they transport essential products, in particular health protection equipment, flights are registered as ghosts”.
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