‘Ghost Flights’ Still Polluting the Skies as Coronavirus Keeps Passengers Grounded

The demand for flights has plummeted as the new coronavirus spreads around the globe, but some British airlines are still sending empty planes into the skies, burning thousands of gallons of fossil fuels that contribute needlessly to the climate crisis.
These so-called "ghost flights" are taking off because of European rules saying airlines must use their airport space or give it up, The Times of London reported Friday. The situation has prompted UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps to write to the independent airport slot coordinator Thursday, asking them to relax the rule in order to prevent airlines from flying nearly or entirely empty planes.
"Such a scenario is not acceptable," Shapps wrote. "It is not in the industry's, the passengers' or the environment's interests and must be avoided."
Aviation demand is reduced due to COVID-19, but airlines are being forced to fly some ‘ghost flights’ to avoid losi… https://t.co/MLsL4eeZlo— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP)1583428531.0
European rules stipulate that airlines taking off from the continent must use 80 percent of their slots or lose them to someone else, Business Insider explained. Airport Coordination Limited has already relaxed the rules for flights to and from Hong Kong and mainland China, but they remain in effect for all other destinations, including outbreak hotspots like Italy and South Korea, according to The Independent.
Shapps isn't the only one who has spoken out. Virgin Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss also called for the rules to be suspended, as they were following 9/11 and the SARS epidemic.
"Passenger demand for air travel has dramatically fallen due to Covid-19 and in some instances we are being forced to fly almost empty planes or lose our valuable slots," he told The Independent.
British trade organization Airlines UK said that, unless the rules were changed, one of its members would have to fly 32 planes that were only 40 percent full between now and March 25, wasting emissions on more than 5,200 empty seats.
"It makes no sense whatsoever under these unique and challenging circumstances to force airlines to fly empty aircraft, wasting money and fuel and creating carbon emissions," the organization said.
The emergence of COVID-19, which has now sickened at least 109,343 people in 104 countries and killed 3,809, comes as there is growing awareness of the climate costs of air travel. Some planes burn five gallons of jet fuel per mile, releasing tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, Earther reported. All told, aviation accounts for more than two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but it is also one of the fastest growing sources of carbon pollution, according to the European Commission. If the airline industry were a country, it would rank among the top 10 global emitters, and a person flying from New York to Paris and back burns about the same amount as someone heating their home in the EU for a year.
- Coronavirus and Other Dangers: How to Stay Healthy on the Plane ... ›
- Coronavirus Jitters Rattle Businesses, Industries, Organizations ... ›
Sweden's reindeer have a problem. In winter, they feed on lichens buried beneath the snow. But the climate crisis is making this difficult. Warmer temperatures mean moisture sometimes falls as rain instead of snow. When the air refreezes, a layer of ice forms between the reindeer and their meal, forcing them to wander further in search of ideal conditions. And sometimes, this means crossing busy roads.
- San Antonio, Texas Unveils Largest Highway Crossing for Wildlife in ... ›
- Wildlife Crossings a Huge Success - EcoWatch ›
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
Heatwaves are not just distinct to the land. A recent study found lakes are susceptible to temperature rise too, causing "lake heatwaves," The Independent reported.
- Climate Change Will Be Sudden and Cataclysmic Unless We Act Now ›
- There's a Heatwave at the Arctic 'Doomsday Vault' - EcoWatch ›
- Marine Heatwaves Destroy Ocean Ecosystems Like Wildfires ... ›
Trending
By Aaron W Hunter
A chance discovery of a beautifully preserved fossil in the desert landscape of Morocco has solved one of the great mysteries of biology and paleontology: how starfish evolved their arms.
The Pompeii of palaeontology. Aaron Hunter, Author provided
<h2></h2><p>Although starfish might appear very robust animals, they are typically made up of lots of hard parts attached by ligaments and soft tissue which, upon death, quickly degrade. This means we rely on places like the Fezouata formations to provide snapshots of their evolution.</p><p>The starfish fossil record is patchy, especially at the critical time when many of these animal groups first appeared. Sorting out how each of the various types of ancient starfish relate to each other is like putting a puzzle together when many of the parts are missing.</p><h2>The Oldest Starfish</h2><p><em><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/216101v1.full.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Cantabrigiaster</a></em> is the most primitive starfish-like animal to be discovered in the fossil record. It was discovered in 2003, but it has taken over 17 years to work out its true significance.</p><p>What makes <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> unique is that it lacks almost all the characteristics we find in brittle stars and starfish.</p><p>Starfish and brittle stars belong to the family Asterozoa. Their ancestors, the Somasteroids were especially fragile - before <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> we only had a handful of specimens. The celebrated Moroccan paleontologist Mohamed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2016.06.041" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ben Moula</a> and his local team was instrumental in discovering <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018216302334?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">these amazing fossils</a> near the town of Zagora, in Morocco.</p><h2>The Breakthrough</h2><p>Our breakthrough moment came when I compared the arms of <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> with those of modern sea lilles, filter feeders with long feathery arms that tend to be attached to the sea floor by a stem or stalk.</p><p>The striking similarity between these modern filter feeders and the ancient starfish led our team from the University of Cambridge and Harvard University to create a new analysis. We applied a biological model to the features of all the current early Asterozoa fossils in existence, along with a sample of their closest relatives.</p>Cantabrigiaster is the most primitive starfish-like animal to be discovered in the fossil record. Aaron Hunter, Author provided
<p>Our results demonstrate <em>Cantabrigiaster</em> is the most primitive of all the Asterozoa, and most likely evolved from ancient animals called crinoids that lived 250 million years before dinosaurs. The five arms of starfish are a relic left over from these ancestors. In the case of <em>Cantabrigiaster</em>, and its starfish descendants, it evolved by flipping upside-down so its arms are face down on the sediment to feed.</p><p>Although we sampled a relatively small numbers of those ancestors, one of the unexpected outcomes was it provided an idea of how they could be related to each other. Paleontologists studying echinoderms are often lost in detail as all the different groups are so radically different from each other, so it is hard to tell which evolved first.</p>President Joe Biden officially took office Wednesday, and immediately set to work reversing some of former President Donald Trump's environmental policies.
- Biden Reaffirms Commitment to Rejoining Paris Agreement ... ›
- Biden Likely Plans to Cancel Keystone XL Pipeline on Day One ... ›
- Joe Biden Appoints Climate Crisis Team - EcoWatch ›
In many schools, the study of climate change is limited to the science. But at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, students in one class also learn how to take climate action.