With the green agenda rising in the U.K.'s 2019 general election campaign, the country's Labour Party has indicated it would consider a ban on fossil-fuel-powered private aircraft flights from 2025. The November 4 statement by shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald was in response to a report by environmental and economic pressure groups Fellow Travellers and Commonwealth that calls for allowing only electrically powered private aircraft flights.

The report, titled "jet, set, go," claims that a passenger in a private jet today emits seven times as much greenhouse gas as a business-class passenger on an airline flight. The reported differential rises to 10 times compared with an economy-class airline passenger and 150 times compared with a train passenger. According to the authors, there were 128,000 private jet flights between U.K. airports and the rest of Europe in 2018—representing 6 percent of total traffic—as well as another 14,000 flights from the U.K. to points beyond Europe.



The report states that four of five private aircraft journeys within Europe today could be conducted by electric aircraft in 2025 and beyond. That said, it acknowledges that even if electric aircraft were widely adopted, this move has the potential to reduce the U.K.'s aviation emissions of greenhouse gases by only around 15 percent by 2050.