Passenger flights first: our campaign to cancel private jets during the fuel crisis.
It’s been all over the news: People’s summer holidays are under threat. The Iran oil crisis has led to a lack of jet fuel which is grounding flights all over Europe - but wasteful private jet travel for the wealthiest few continues as usual.
This isn’t right.
Why should ordinary people have to take the hit and lose their holiday, while the richest can keep jetting around on ultra-polluting flights?
We know that the total number of flights needs to go down to protect our climate - but we need to do this in a way that’s fair. So we’re campaigning to get the UK government to ban private jets until this fuel crisis ends (and then start taxing them properly).
Here’s where we’ve got to so far:
We’ve done the maths: it checks out
We’ve found that restricting private jet flights would free up significant fuel capacity for passenger travel.
Cancelling just one private jet flight would save enough fuel to allow six families of four to go on holiday.
Cancelling all private jet flights for a year would allow more than 700,000 families to go on holiday.
2. We’ve done polling: public support is strong.
A poll of over 2,000 UK adults shows that two thirds of the British public agree that private jet travel should be restricted before cancelling standard passenger flights.
3. We’ve made the case - loud and clear.
To force the government to take action, we need to show that this is something the public know about and care about - so we’ve been getting the message out. We’ve already got stories in press, from The Independent to the Daily Mail, and have teamed up with 38 degrees to launch a petition publicly calling the UK’s Secretary of State for Transport to cancel private jets until the fuel crisis ends. If you’ve not yet signed the petition, you can add your name here.
4. We’ve lobbied our MPs directly.
Last week hundreds of people on Possible’s mailing list received our new webtool which makes it really easy to ask your local MP to support a ban on private jets.
If you haven’t yet taken action, please take two minutes now - simply fill in your name, email address and postcode, and our online tool can send a tailored email straight to your MP.
What’s next?
We will continue building momentum for this campaign - getting more people involved, getting more signatures on the petition, more emails in MPs’ inboxes, and more coverage in the media.
In the meantime, we’re gathering stories of real people whose holidays are at threat. This will strengthen our campaign because real stories cut through the numbers and they inspire politicians to take action. If your holiday is under threat, please let us know.
Love what we’re doing?
At Possible, our vision is a zero carbon UK, built by and for everyone. We show people and politicians across the country that this is possible, and inspire practical action to make sure we get there at the speed required.
As a registered charity, we rely on donations from people like you.
If you can, please consider donating just £3 a month to support our work.