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The aviation industry has gotten twice as fuel-efficient since 1990, and emissions have still quadrupled. In this episode, we reckon with the guilt of flying, tracing it from economy class all the way up to private jets, where a handful of ultra-wealthy passengers emit up to 500 times more carbon than the average person annually. Plus, we dig into sustainable aviation fuel with Alyssa Norris from Aether Fuels and what it would actually take to make flying something we don't have to feel guilty about.

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Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Lorena, Morgan Gallagher, Bruno Olmedo Quiroga, Darice  Chang, Jessica Tucker, Kayla Joy , Lena, Dom Altomari
• Research: Makenna McBrierty
• Editing and engineering: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

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Episode transcript

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Katelan Cunningham (00:00):

Hi, there you are listening to Second Nature, a podcast from Commons. If you are a sustainable traveler or even an aspiring sustainable traveler, you should download Commons because you could be earning rewards for every sustainable travel purchase, including public transportation, EV charging, and even EV. Scooter rentals Join hundreds of thousands of mindful shoppers who use Commons to track their progress every day.

New Speaker (00:35):

Does this sound familiar? You're at the airport and you've brought your own reusable water bottle. When I bring my reusable water bottle to LAX, I feel really good about reducing plastic and better still that I'm saving $10 and buying a disposable one From Hudson News, I get there, I go to the closest water refill station that they have in the terminal and on the machine there's that count of how many water bottles that machine is saved. Usually it's in the thousands. So I know that I'm not alone here. There's some debate about how trustworthy that number is, but regardless, I feel good about filling up my water bottle. That is until I think about the environmental impact of the very reason I'm here at LEX, which is to get on a plane.

Katelan Cunningham (01:26):

The emissions I'm saving by bringing my own water bottle are merely droplets in the VA of the emissions of my flight. Don't get me wrong, I'm always going to bring my reusable water bottle to the airport. You should too. But this realization highlighted for me a specific kind of guilt I have with flying and hearing from all of you. You feel this too? When I fly a few times a year, it's to see my family or to go on a little vacation with my partner. Infrastructure and technological advances have led to a world where I can leave my house in LA at breakfast and sit down, eat dinner with my family in Texas on the same day. But if I consider myself a mindful consumer, which I do, am I a hypocrite for flying? Should I uproot my life so I live closer to my family? Should I feel bad about an overseas trip to experience new cultures? And how much guilt should I be feeling anyway? Considering how many millionaires and billionaires fly in private jets without a second thought,

Katelan Cunningham (02:31):

It is that time of year when maybe you are considering booking your summer trips or you've recently come back from spring break. So we thought it was the perfect time to find out is there a sustainable future for aviation and how can we accelerate it. I'm your host, Kaitlyn Cunningham, and today on the show we're gonna hear from you about if the guilt of flying keeps you grounded. We're gonna do the numbers on those private jets. We're gonna see if flying has become more efficient over the years, and we're gonna hear about the the latest innovations in sustainable airline fuel. Buckle up for takeoff. Here we go.

Katelan Cunningham (03:12):

It's probably obvious, but most of the emissions from a plane ticket come from the fuel that's burned to get you from point A to point B. In the past few decades, flying has gotten a lot more energy efficient. That's largely because planes have gotten bigger, seats have gotten smaller, and the flights are more full. And of course we know that the motivation for that is not totally for the planet either way. The fuel itself has not gotten more emissions efficient. The carbon intensity of the fuel being burned is the same. In other words, for every unit of energy used, the same amount of emissions are being released. That's because the fuel itself hasn't changed.

Katelan Cunningham (03:57):

The fuel we were using in 1990 and the fuel we're using now is basically the same stuff. There's a tiny fraction of sustainable fuel in there. We'll talk more about that later. But on top of all that, we're flying a lot more now. So we're flying more miles using less fuel, but the fuel is burning the same amount of emissions as it has for decades. So if you're doing the math, all this adds up to a quadruple jump in aviation emissions since the 1960s. The TLDR is that your emissions per mile of plane travel are going down, but it's not because the fuel is becoming more efficient, it's because the plane is using less fuel per passenger. All in all, aviation is responsible for about 4% of the global rise in temperatures since pre-industrial times. It may not sound like a lot, but consider the fact that that's not based on everyone in the world flying. Only about half of Americans have taken a flight within the past 12 months Worldwide, it's a fraction of that, about 10% of people. So even though a majority of people are not flying, there are lots of planes in the air and a lot of the folks who fly certainly carry some guilt.

Bruno Olmedo Quiroga (05:17):

Something that I can't give up is flights. I fly a lot for work. I fly for pleasure. Um, it's just part of my lifestyle and it's hard to give up.

Jessica Tucker (05:33):

I feel guilty for it and I definitely limit it. I don't short haul fly anymore. I don't fly nearly as often as I used to, but I can't bring myself to completely sacrifice the opportunity to travel and explore other parts of the world and other cultures when I can.

Katelan Cunningham (05:53):

I love to travel. My family also lives in Chicago,

Katelan Cunningham (05:57):

So I do take airplanes quite a lot. I also travel a lot for work. One thing though is I have become a lot more cognizant of my travel and my impact while traveling.

Lorena James (06:07):

Very excited for the day when zero emission flights become a reality. Until then, you know, I'll stick to my little road trips. And whenever I do fly internationally, um, there are always other ways to be, um, eco-friendly and environmentally conscious when you travel.

Morgan Gallagher (06:26):

When I'm at a location, I try to be as sustainable as possible, you know, supporting local businesses, also using public transportation when I'm there.

Darice Chang (06:36):

I actually was on a no-fly commitment for a number of years because I was concerned about how much carbon is emitted every time you fly. Like it's significant and I know you can buy offsets, but I feel conflicted about carbon offsets because a lot of the times they're basically taking carbon emissions that aren't being emitted by developing countries and calling that an offset. And I feel like that's unethical. Also, not being able to travel has really done a number on my mental health. So I think finding a balance is gonna be important.

Lena Skinner (07:12):

My patterns have changed a lot this year, specifically as I started attending an international boarding school on the other side of the country, which means I now have to fly at least four times a year in taking that flight. I'm coming to a school where I'm studying climate action in a program that I wouldn't be able to get at home at all. I can kind of use that as a justifying factor to erase the guilt because for the most part, those flights would be flying anyways. So if it means that I am able to facilitate my learning to help come up with, um, a more sustainable future, I think that makes it okay a little bit. It can be difficult, especially at my school. Almost everybody has to take a flight to get here, which means about like 200 people are taking at least four flights a year.

Lena Skinner (08:07):

That can be really problematic, especially if we were to look at my school's total carbon emissions. But the whole point is to bring together people from all kinds of different countries to learn and collaborate. And if we were kind of limiting where people were coming from based on carbon emissions, you wouldn't be able to have that experience. I feel like the mission of that kind of is more important than the emissions because you are shaping these young people to be able to work for a more peaceful and sustainable future, which will hopefully pay off more in the long run and lead to productions and emissions. I'm not really sure <laugh>,

Kayla Joy (08:54):

One Thing I can't give up is international travel. I said it even as I advocate for sustainability. I still fly between Baltimore and Antigua, London and LA regularly, and now with our expanding work, we're adding more destinations. I believe in the power of face-to-face connection and cultural exchange to spread of revolutionary ideas and having maximum impact even while acknowledging the carbon footprint it creates. I'm working on offsetting it through our agricultural initiatives, but I refuse to sacrifice the human connections that make our work possible and meaningful. Perfect environmentalism isn't my goal, nor should it be anyone's goal. It's creating systems where imperfect humans like me can still collectively drive massive positive change.

Katelan Cunningham (09:52):

If you live in the US and you're listening to the show, I'm sure you know the deep desire of wanting a large scale functioning high speed rail system. Heck, even a normal speed one would do. In addition to investments in rail, I'm also looking forward to more investments in SAF that is sustainable aviation fuel. It's the low carbon alternative to the stuff that we've been using for decades, and I wanted to learn more about it. So I called up Alyssa Norris. Alyssa leads sustainability at Ather Fuels where she oversees the company's corporate and project sustainability and environmental strategy. Hey, Alyssa, thanks for coming on the show.

Alyssa Norris (10:35):

Of course. Thanks for having me.

Katelan Cunningham (10:37):

Okay, so I wanna dive right in and start off with a saaf primer. What is sustainable aviation fuel made of and how much can SAF really reduce the emissions of a flight?

Alyssa Norris (10:49):

The short answer is that sustainable aviation fuel is a drop in replacement for conventional jet fuel, which basically means that chemically, that SAF is exactly the same as petroleum based jet fuel. Uh, so it can use basically the same engines, the same infrastructure more or less, and we can use it today just instead of petroleum sources for carbon, we're using other renewable carbon sources. So right now a lot of SAF is made from different waste oils, but SAF can also be made from different waste carbon like agricultural residue, municipal solid waste captured carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or from industrial plants, and it can also come from biogas or uh, renewable natural gas. So that's kind of a a, a very, very quick definition of saf.

Katelan Cunningham (11:39):

Yeah, yeah. I would love to know kind of what's the cool thing to be making SAF out of these days, and then what is your focus at a, or what is the main sort of source that, that you guys use?

Alyssa Norris (11:51):

So SAF today, a lot of people don't actually know, but if you're flying out of certain airports like Los Angeles, um, or London Heathrow, you might actually be flying on an airplane that even today is using saaf. And right now a lot of what I'll call first generation saaf, which is most of the commercial staff that's on the market, is made up of used cooking oil. You're french fries from McDonald's, for example, that can be <laugh> processed and used in an aircraft. Um, also animal fats and used vegetable oils. This is commonly known as HEA fuels, and that's really again, kind of the first generation. Okay. So if you think about it, the fats, oils and greases, it's already a really, really similar composition to petroleum jet fuel. But what's coming next and what we're really excited about and really what Ather focuses on is what we'll call next generation saf. There's quite a few varieties of next gen saf, but this is taking different waste carbon, like those agriculture wastes, forestry residue waste, industrial waste gases and m methane, and then turning that through different processes into jet fuel and really there's a a lot more waste out there so we can make a ton more fuel and really scale in the future. That's really exciting and, and kind of what's coming in the world of staff next.

Katelan Cunningham (13:12):

So who are you guys talking to to get these types of oils and fats and things? Like, are you going to McDonald's? Like where are you going to ask for these, these types of materials?

Alyssa Norris (13:22):

Yeah, so a lot of companies today, um, Neste is a huge, uh, company that makes a lot of SAF today and they have quite a few supply chains. They've worked with large fast food companies, different animal production companies to get and capture those, those waste oils. For us, we're really interested in working with existing industrial waste gas locations as well as places where biom methane and renewable natural gas. So, uh, that could be even from ethanol facilities for industrial waste gases, hu and paper mills. Wow. It could also be for, for the biogas can be, um, dairy plants that then capture and use that waste or even a lot of landfills, which can then capture that methane process it and use it into a fuel like saf.

Katelan Cunningham (14:11):

Yeah. And when a plane runs on saf, let's say a hundred percent runs on saf, what's the difference in emissions between a plane running on fossil fuels versus one running on saf?

Alyssa Norris (14:23):

So basically if we're just comparing the fuel, so call it, you know, a gallon of fossil jet fuel versus a gallon of saf, typically you can reach at least 80 to 90% emissions reduction. Wow. On a gallon to gallon ratio. Of course, a lot of that depends on the full lifecycle analysis, so what feedstock you're using, how much electricity it takes, what your process is. But that 80 to 90% is, uh, is, is pretty common for high quality saaf. I will note that right now, just from a technical and safety perspective, commercial jets can only fly on 50% saaf blend and that's just because even though it's considered a drop in fuel, there's some very small differences that older engines and older aircraft can't uh, handle. So from a an aviation perspective, they wanna make sure the fuel is very, very safe. So you can do up to a 50% blend rate in aircraft today. Okay. And a lot of the engine manufacturers, a lot of companies, both Airbus and Boeing, they're making strides every day to make sure that these new aircraft can handle 100% staff. But right now from a commercial perspective, just that 50% blend ratio is allowed.

Katelan Cunningham (15:36):

I was wondering about that because I found this stat and tell me if this is right, that less than zero 1% of flights are currently powered by staff. And so I was wondering what was getting in the way? You're mentioning an obstacle of the fact that older engines literally can't run on a hundred percent staff. Is that the main blocker?

Alyssa Norris (15:54):

Really it's, it's not so much the technology. So like I said, up to 50% blends are allowed from the technical engine aspect and aircraft aspect, but it's really about scaling. How much SAF is produced. Do I mentioned that the gen one feedstocks like HEA that use those fats, oils and greases. There's only a limited amount of those feedstocks available today. In the future, if we're going to meet hopefully a 50% and eventually maybe 100% of jet fuel can be used from waste products or from saf, we can basically use additional supply chains. It's also kind of worth noting the cost gap right now between fossil fuel and uh, saf. There is definitely a price premium for sustainable aviation fuel. A lot of that is because a lot of these technologies that produce staff are very early stage production. They have smaller facilities, uh, and there's a lot of capital costs right now that mm uh, we think over time we, we can reduce, uh, to get closer and closer to the fossil jet fuel price. But that is a big reason why as well.

Katelan Cunningham (17:02):

I'm actually surprised to hear that feed stocks are like part of the limitation. I would imagine that, I mean just looking at cows and french fries, <laugh> and ethanol, like it seems like we produce a lot of those things and that there would be a lot of waste, um, from those feed feedstock options.

Alyssa Norris (17:20):

Yeah, they're definitely, uh, if you're looking at waste carbon holistically, so again, that agriculture waste captured CO2 industrial waste gas, uh, or even biogas, there's a much larger amount that's available that we're really trying to tap into and that we think can meet a huge demand and, and produce a lot of saf. But those gen one hea saf, so that used cooking oil and fats and greases mm-hmm <affirmative>. Just not that many of them compared to how much we need to fuel the airplanes and commercial aviation that we use today.

Katelan Cunningham (17:54):

Yeah, I mean I imagine when you think of all the planes in the air and how, I have no idea how big a plane fuel tank must be, but I imagine quite large <laugh>

Alyssa Norris (18:03):

<laugh>. Yes. It, uh, it takes a lot of fuel to, uh, to, to fuel a single aircraft. And then if you imagine how many are in the skies today, it's uh, it's a lot of fuel that we need.

Katelan Cunningham (18:13):

So you mentioned sort of the transition from HEA to, to sort of these next gen fuels. Are there other sort of like milestones that have happened over the past sort of like 10 years since SAF has been being

Alyssa Norris (18:26):

Created? Yeah, absolutely. So I mentioned that a lot of airports and a lot of flights already today use staff and that's only increasing every year. If you look back about 10 years ago, we were really only using staff as demonstration flights, and today it is still commercially, it is actually commercially deployed. There's also been a lot of policy changes that have really helped support, uh, staff uptake. Uh, so right now in Europe and the uk there are actually mandates that require international aircraft coming to or from those regions, um, use a certain percentage of staff and also there's a lot of voluntary staff usage. Uh, so a lot, a lot more companies, especially over the last 10 years are trying to cut their scope three emissions, which scope three emissions include corporate travel, which jet fuel certainly contributes to. So here in the US for example, there's quite a few corporate programs and a lot of US airlines are really looking to lower their carbon footprint and lower their Scope one emissions as well as help support their customers to lower the Scope three emissions.

Alyssa Norris (19:33):

There's some other regions. So in the US there's been quite a bit of support over the last 10 years for other staff projects. So we actually have this in originally in the inflation reduction Act and then was kind of resolidified in the one big beautiful bill that actually has a saaf credit tax incentive credit. Um, and other places like Singapore, they have a saaf levy framework, which is kind of some additional policy and legislation helping support staff globally. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So we're seeing quite a bit of support there. And then lastly we have, it's under IKO, which is one of the UN bodies, and they have something called corsea, which is a global aviation climate framework. Um, which 10 years ago we didn't have, and now we do, and that's really a target for airlines to, to reduce their emissions. Um, so a lot of policy, a lot of drivers and, and of course like I said, staff is is now available and every year we're getting more and more of it on the market.

Katelan Cunningham (20:34):

That's really exciting. Are there any airlines in particular that are really accelerating or leading this switch to staff more than others? You mentioned policy, but usually when there's a leader in a green industry, it's they're going beyond what the policy requires. So I'm wondering if there are any airlines that come to mind for that.

Alyssa Norris (20:52):

Yeah, quite a few. Um, I'll, I'll mention two of our, uh, of kind of our athers partners just because we, we know what they're doing very intimately. Um, so JetBlue, which is, uh, an airline here in the us, they actually have their own venture fund that specifically was looking at investing into SAF projects and SAF companies. Uh, so that's one option and kind of way that they've really taken a step forward even to go beyond what's required. And Singapore Airlines has also really been leading the charge, uh, in the Southeast Asia region, um, for procuring SAF and setting really aggressive targets. Additionally, United Airlines in the US has been really strong on saf, one of the first movers. Uh, they also have a venture fund that helps support a number of projects, but includes SAF investments and staff projects. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And IAG, which is the, uh, international Airlines group, and that includes British Airways, Iberia Air Lingus. They've been a huge supporter of Saaf for quite a while, and they're very involved in both kind of the policy side, specifically in the UK and using saaf. They're, they're the, uh, largest saaf user, um, as far as an airline group in the world. Wow. There's quite a few others that are, are definitely doing a lot of work, but, uh, a few call outs there.

Katelan Cunningham (22:13):

Yeah. I wondered as a consumer, is there any way to see if the specific flight that we're on is running on saaf?

Alyssa Norris (22:22):

Oh, that's a really good question. I don't think there's anything that's holistic. Uh, but there are a number of airlines that you can kind of, you know, see your, your carbon footprint and contribute to a saaf fund. So specifically United and Alaska Airlines you can see. Hmm. Yeah, but that's a really good question. I don't know if there is <laugh>. Not that I'm aware of. I guess

Katelan Cunningham (22:46):

It would be kind of cool. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. It reminds me kind of of, um, um, on Google Maps, now sometimes they'll show you like the fuel efficient route. I'm kind of like, is there a little thing where it's like this plane is running on 10%, you know, <laugh>

Alyssa Norris (22:59):

Staff?

Katelan Cunningham (22:59):

That would be awesome.

Alyssa Norris (23:00):

Yeah. Yeah, it would.

Katelan Cunningham (23:03):

Besides saf, which seems hugely important for the, the progress of sustainability in the aviation industry, are airlines working on any other substantial sustainability efforts that you have your eye on that you think will really make a difference or move the needle?

Alyssa Norris (23:18):

Yeah, a few things. Um, certainly from our perspective, especially with long haul flights, staff is really the one the easiest because the infrastructure is already there and the most significant impact, but there's a number of other work that's being done. So a lot of airports, for example, are trying to change from having the airplanes just sit on the tarmac or sit in their, their slots and just running all the time. So basically using fossil fuel to keep the lights on in your aircraft to actually hooking them up to ground power, which especially in regions that have a low, uh, lower CI score, electricity grid can save a ton of emissions and a lot of electricity. Yeah. That's one way that they're definitely lowering emissions. A lot of groups are buying some carbon credits, which, uh, there's some discussion if that's the best way to do it, but as a short term solution, that's potentially a good option as long as they are legitimate and, uh, well vetted. And you know, I think also just there, there's been quite a few changes on engine efficiency, airframe design. Hmm. So how can you make a gallon of fuel go even further, get you an extra mile, two miles, that sort of thing. Right. Uh, so there is a lot of work happening both at the airports with the airlines and, and with the airplane manufacturers. So all across the board, small progress, certainly

Katelan Cunningham (24:44):

Looking forward at the rate of progress that you're seeing now with policy and with, you know, individual businesses making progress, what percent of flights would you expect to run on staff, say 10 years from now and 20 years from now?

Alyssa Norris (24:57):

So today we're only about 0.1% of all fuel is saf, so that's a, a very, very small percentage. But every year, as I said, we're getting more and more partially because of mandates, partially because of pressure, and partially just because flyers, both corporate and individual want to fly more cleanly. So my guess, if I had a, a crystal ball <laugh>, I think by 2035 we'll hit around 5%. So that's a little over 10 years from now. And then I think it will continue even more from there. So I'm hoping by, you know, call 2046, so 20 years from now I'm really hoping that we get to about 30 to 50% and then yeah, hopefully we can continue <laugh>.

Katelan Cunningham (25:43):

Is there any policy right now that we should have our eye on that could help make this progress happen faster?

Alyssa Norris (25:50):

There's quite a few different countries that have goals, but don't have formal, um, policy in place yet. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Uh, I think one region where we're seeing a lot of of action happening is in Southeast Asia and Latin America. So Brazil has a, a mandate and that's being updated. I'm, I'm really excited to see what happens there. And I know Australia, uh, which of course one of the, the main ways and the way that most people get to Australia is through flying <laugh>. They also have some, some discussions and mandates and incentives in, in process. So really excited over the next few years to see, uh, specifically Australia and Brazil and what they do with their policy and mandates.

Katelan Cunningham (26:34):

Very cool. Well, I know we have listeners in both of those countries, so hopefully they can keep an eye on that. <laugh>

Alyssa Norris (26:39):

<laugh>.

Katelan Cunningham (26:39):

Well thank you so, so much for coming on the show. This has been really exciting. Thank you for sharing all, all of your knowledge and all of your work.

Alyssa Norris (26:46):

Yeah, of course. Yeah. I just wanted to end on, on one piece, I think that Delta Airlines has this great tagline and they always say you shouldn't have to choose between seeing the world and saving it. And I think with saf, uh, we can absolutely still make sure that we can see the worlds and do the right thing and and fly even more environmentally safely. So I just wanted to leave it on that note. <laugh>,

Katelan Cunningham (27:08):

Yes, thank you for working on that future for us. I appreciate it.

Alyssa Norris (27:11):

Of course. Thank you so much.

Katelan Cunningham (27:20):

While most folks who fly have had to get used to smaller seats, less leg room, other people's flying experiences have gone quite the other direction. I'm talking fewer people, more space. No waiting for your group number or fighting over an armrest. The real VIP treatment, I call them commons founders in Sanchali Seth Pal to follow this money.

Katelan Cunningham (27:44):

So Sanchali, I wanted to talk to you about a slightly controversial topic. Well, I guess it's controversial if you're Taylor Swift <laugh>, I wanted to talk to you about private jets.

Sanchali Seth Pal (27:56):

Uh, yes. The ultra wealthy transportation, flex

Katelan Cunningham (28:00):

<laugh>. Yeah. So we've heard from our listeners and they feel guilty about flying at all sometimes. Meanwhile, there are folks like Taylor Swift, the Kardashians, Oprah, Jeff Bezos, they're all flying around in their jets seemingly without a care in the world.

Sanchali Seth Pal (28:14):

I know, right? I mean that's kind of the point. We're all taking the bus and they're taking the Hummer stretch limo <laugh>. It's the ultimate inconvenience and luxury. Let me first say like not that many people in the world fly to start with. It's a minority of the global population, but only a fraction of a percent like 0.003% of the global adult population uses private jets. So that's like a quarter of a million people.

Katelan Cunningham (28:42):

Okay. So even with such a low number, it seems like there's still been more attention on private jets in the past few years.

Sanchali Seth Pal (28:50):

There definitely has been and with good reason economic disparity is getting more extreme and with it private jets are becoming more popular. In some ways it's because the wealthy are becoming wealthier and also private jets are becoming more accessible

Katelan Cunningham (29:06):

For the slightly less wealthy.

Sanchali Seth Pal (29:07):

Yeah. There's this sort of boom in the public charter market where basically you don't own the jet but you're flying on it with just a few other people. You could think of it as like fractional private jet flying.

Katelan Cunningham (29:19):

Okay. I honestly don't love the idea of private jets getting more accessible <laugh>,

Sanchali Seth Pal (29:25):

I know, I know it's hard to think about, but it's like I feel like we see the same thing playing out in public transit where you know, as public transit options get worse, they're packing more and more people in, they're less reliable. The appeal of your own luxury private vehicle becomes a lot more attractive. And that's true in the air, just like it is on the ground. The only reason it's possible is because the growth and concentration of wealth. And that's gotten a lot worse. We know that in 2025, the top 1% of US households hold approximately a third of the country's wealth. So that's an incredibly high concentration of wealth and a very small number of people.

Katelan Cunningham (30:05):

And so that means that I assume more private jets are flying now than they used to be.

Sanchali Seth Pal (30:10):

Yes. Private jets are flying 35% more than they were 10 years ago. That means that this small group of ultra wealthy passengers has an outsize impact when it comes to emissions profits and more in the aviation industry.

Katelan Cunningham (30:24):

All right. So let's break this down a little bit more. I wanna start with emissions.

Sanchali Seth Pal (30:28):

Great. So when we fly on a regular commercial flight, we calculate the emissions per passenger with pretty easy math. We take the overall emissions of the flight and the aircraft and we divide it by the number of passengers. While private jets are smaller and they create less overall emissions, sometimes they have far fewer passengers.

Katelan Cunningham (30:46):

Got it. So you can kind of think of it like the higher percentage of the plane that's for you, the higher your emissions are gonna be. So naturally private jet passengers emissions are gonna be higher.

Sanchali Seth Pal (30:57):

Exactly. And that's actually also true because although smaller planes take up less fuel, they're less efficient. So the emissions per passenger are higher. It can be between five to 14% higher emissions per person on a private jet than on a commercial airline.

Katelan Cunningham (31:15):

That's a huge difference. It's hard to even think about what that really means.

Sanchali Seth Pal (31:18):

I know, right? So like if you think about someone who's flying in a private jet regularly over the course of a year, they might emit almost 500 times more carbon than the average person like you and me, let's say like you or me is flying. We might have in emissions of like a few tons of carbon a year from flying, say you take three or five flights in a year in the country, that might put you in like single digit tons for the year. But someone who's flying 500 times more than that, that puts them in the thousands of tons realm. Wow. And that's a hundred times more than the average American's carbon footprint. That's like eating like 80 to a hundred burgers every single day of the year. It's like having a fleet of 300 cars at your fingertips that drive around all year round. It's a lot.

Katelan Cunningham (32:03):

I can understand why these big celebrities have gotten flack for this, especially because people have also been noticing how short of distances a lot of these private jets are flying.

Sanchali Seth Pal (32:12):

Yes, definitely. In private aviation, the average distance that one of these flights is going is about 300 miles. And in commercial aviation it's a lot longer. It's an average of about a thousand miles.

Katelan Cunningham (32:23):

Okay. And the short haul flights, they increase the per passenger emissions, right?

Sanchali Seth Pal (32:28):

Yes. Not just because of how much more space people take on the plane. Not just because of the planes themselves being less efficient, but also because takeoff and landing are the most fuel intensive parts of a flight. So if you're doing a really short flight, it's gonna be higher emissions per minute even.

Katelan Cunningham (32:45):

Gotcha. Okay. So let's follow the money here. Is the aviation industry making more money off the Kardashians than they are off of me?

Sanchali Seth Pal (32:54):

Oh, for sure. <laugh>, the aviation industry is making like very little money off of economy class tickets. They are the lowest margin tickets by far. The premium segments are where the real money is to be made. So that's true in commercial aircraft business and first class segments are only about 10 to 12% of passengers, but they comprise almost three quarters of profits. And that's even more extreme on private aviation companies earn four to five times higher margins per flight on these ultra premium segments than they do on a standard flight.

Katelan Cunningham (33:25):

Dang. So my economy ticket on a budget airline is small potatoes <laugh>.

Sanchali Seth Pal (33:30):

Yes. They care about you a little less than they do. They're really big customers. One study found that in most European countries, private jet fuel is taxed at a lower rate than for commercial aviation or automotive fuel.

Katelan Cunningham (33:43):

So private jets are kind of getting a tax advantage

Sanchali Seth Pal (33:46):

They can be and it's in more ways than one. So for instance, thanks to the big beautiful bill that passed last year, private jet owners can write off the entire cost of their private jet against their taxable income in the first year. And if, if the jet is being used for mostly business purposes, they can continue to write off ongoing costs like fuel year after year.

Katelan Cunningham (34:06):

Whoa. So the ultra wealthy are likely getting subsidized private airfare thanks to the big beautiful bill,

Sanchali Seth Pal (34:13):

And if the subsidies go away, flying gets even more expensive.

Katelan Cunningham (34:17):

Okay. And that's when we start seeing sort of the true cost of flights.

Sanchali Seth Pal (34:21):

Well, yeah. When we think about the true cost of flying, the rich aren't playing the true cost of flying, but none of us really are. Whether you fly economy or private, all fossil fuels are subsidized in the United States. One step beyond that, no one is trying to price in the environmental, social, and human costs of combusting fossil fuels directly into the atmosphere

Katelan Cunningham (34:42):

<laugh>, right?

Sanchali Seth Pal (34:43):

So yes, flying is expensive. It's also still cheaper than the true cost.

Katelan Cunningham (34:48):

So the true cost is kind of like our financial costs and our emissions cost. Whenever I'm looking at my flights in the Commons app, first of all, the months where I buy flights have the highest emissions. But also it's helpful because you're able to put in where you departed from and where you arrived at and the emissions become more accurate based on the distance as you actually flew.

Sanchali Seth Pal (35:11):

Absolutely. When I fly, I try to think about the true cost of a trip that I'm planning. So I try to think about the dollars that I'm spending on the airfare, and then I also try to look at the dollars I'm gonna spend to offset the emissions of that flight. And that tells me a little bit more about the true cost of that flight and helps me make a decision about whether it's financially worth it for me or not. When you're thinking about the cost of offsetting the emissions, you can offset for that for somewhere around $35 per ton in the Commons app, for instance, where that is a blend of really high quality offset credits that will balance out emissions for at least the next 30 years. The sort of critical period between now and 2050. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Or you can think of it as maybe if I spent $200 a ton that's kind of closer to the true social cost of carbon or the cost of fully offsetting the permanent effects of those emissions in the atmosphere. That's kind of how I think about it, is I like try to add the total cost of the flight plus somewhere between 35 to $200 per ton of the emissions and think about that in my mind of like, okay, this flight is worth it or this flight is not worth it.

Katelan Cunningham (36:15):

So it sounds like there are always things that we can do personally to account for and take responsibility for the true cost of our flights. And we should also be putting pressure on our governments to accelerate the transition to more sustainable aviation like we talked about with Alyssa, and to properly tax and cut incentives for these private jets.

Sanchali Seth Pal (36:36):

Absolutely. There are things we can do in our daily life as we are making our purchasing decisions to send a signal to airlines, whether that's thinking really carefully about when we buy our flights, expressing demand for sustainable aviation fuel. If there's a little box you can click when you're checking out mm-hmm <affirmative>. So there's those small things that we can do, but there's also, it's so important to be aware of the bigger systems we're a part of and to pay attention to the people we're electing and the bills that they're passing.

Katelan Cunningham (37:01):

Absolutely. Thank you so much for this deep dive.

Sanchali Seth Pal (37:03):

Thank you so much.

Katelan Cunningham (37:08):

No matter your travel plans, all of us could and should be advocating for faster progress in SAF and other sustainability efforts as well as more private jet regulations. Thank you to our listeners for sharing their love hate relationships with flying. Today you heard from [credits].

Katelan Cunningham (37:43):

This episode was edited and engineered by the one and only Evan Goodchild. It was written and produced by me, Katelan Cunningham, with research support from Makenna McBrierty. Before you go listen to this community classified from Dom in Seattle and I'll catch you back here next week.

Dom (38:00):

My name is Dom and I'm involved with Change the Chamber. We're a national climate advocacy organization that specifically targets the business community as well as the government. So pushing companies and our legislators to stop funding or passing, um, climate obstructive lobbying and to use their economic and or law making influence to support real climate policy and infrastructure for future generations to come if you care about climate, but feel like individual actions aren't enough. I think this is the kind of systemic advocacy work that actually really moves the needle for us. And I mean, it also just gives me a wonderful, lovely community full of like-minded young people who are also fighting towards the same thing. And nothing has been more empowering than that. I will say that with my full chest.

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