Calculating the emissions from first class flights
Photo ©2006 Dave Sag. Used with permission
Every so often we get an email enquiry that raises some very valid concerns. In this case we received an email from a chap who claims that there is “no way that a first class passenger is responsible for 3 times the carbon emissions of an economy passenger.”
He has raised an interesting point and, at first glance it does seem counter-intuitive that a first class passenger would be accountable for three times the amount of greenhouse gasses. We believe that Carbon Planet’s flight emissions calculator, which can be used at flights.carbonplanet.com is the most accurate flight emissions calculator available online today. We have documented all of our workings in a comprehensive paper (1.1MB PDF) written by our senior emissions auditor Dr Davide Ross, and that paper is linked off the flight calculator page. That paper cites all the necessary reference materials to support our case which can be summarised as follows:
Notwithstanding the fact that a first class passenger is paying on the order of five times the price as an economy class passenger, gets better, more complex food, and has a greater baggage allowance, the key facts here are that, on average, a first class passenger takes up more than three economy class seats worth of raw space. An aeroplane has a fixed capacity and if they were to, hypothetically, fill the plane with only first class spaces then only one third of the passengers could actually fly. For this reason it is reasonable to say that a first class passenger is accountable for around three times the greenhouse gas emissions of an economy class passenger. — DS
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