FROM THE INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES
For Immediate Release
Press contact below
Washington, D.C. – In recent weeks, Taylor Swift has drawn scrutiny for her private jet travel habits, including speculation about her ability to attend the upcoming Super Bowl.
Private jet travel and inequality experts Chuck Collins and Omar Ocampo, co-authors of recent research on private jet travel, are available for comment and interviews on Taylor Swift’s jet-setting and the larger context of the full cost of private jet travel to taxpayers and the planet.
“Like many parents of pre-teen and teenage girls, I’ve spent over a decade learning every Taylor Swift song. She deserves all the accolades and awards for her incredible songwriting talent. But it’s time to give up the private jet,” said expert Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-author of research on the costs of private travel. “It’s time to focus our attention on the considerable harms that private jet travel causes to our planet, and the significant costs that ordinary taxpayers end up shouldering, too. Our in-depth research found that private jets emit at least 10 times more pollutants per passenger compared to commercial planes. As a role model for millions of people around the world, Taylor Swift should set a powerful example by ditching the private jet and helping to save the planet.”
A 2023 study by the Institute for Policy Studies, “High Flyers 2023: How Ultra-Rich Private Jet Travel Costs the Rest of Us and Burns Up Our Planet,” carefully examined publicly available data and found that:
- Approximately 1 percent of people are believed to be responsible for about half of all aviation carbon emissions.
- Since the start of the pandemic, private jet use has increased by about a fifth and private jet emissions have increased more than 23 percent, according to a recent study.
- Private jets make up approximately one out of every six flights handled by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) but contribute just 2 percent of the taxes that make up the trust fund that primarily funds the FAA.
- The median net worth of a full and fractional private jet owner is $190 million and $140 million respectively, even though They represent 0.0008 percent of the global population.
- The private jet sector set industry records with regards to transaction and dollar volume in 2021 and 2022. The size of the global fleet has increased 133 percent in the last two decades from 9,895 in 2000 to 23,133 in mid-2022.
- A 10 percent and 5 percent global transfer fee on pre-owned and new private aircraft, respectively, would have raised $2.4 billion in 2021 and $2.6 billion in 2022.
- A proposed tax hike on private jet fuel could raise $1.8 billion a year for sustainable transit.
- Elon Musk would pay an additional $3.94 million in taxes if our recommended transfer fee and jet fuel tax were implemented. He is one of the most active high flyers in the United States.
- Thousands of municipal airports in the U.S. are funded by the public, but many primarily serve private and corporate jets.
“Taylor Swift’s potential flight from Tokyo to Las Vegas just to attend the Super Bowl is the best argument for a tax on private jet travel,” said IPS researcher and report co-author Omar Ocampo. “Our research found that such a tax could have generated over $2 billion a year. Ordinary taxpayers and our planet are paying the cost of private jet travel. It’s time to reverse this harmful trend.”
Read IPS’s full 2023 report on the cost of private jet travel to taxpayers and the planet: https://ips-dc.org/report-high-flyers-2023/
IPS’s research on private jet travel has appeared in The Associated Press, Bloomberg, The Boston Globe, CBS, CNN, Forbes, Fortune, The Guardian, Insider, The New Republic, Newsweek, The New York Times, TIME, and other outlets.
To speak with Chuck Collins or Omar Ocampo for an interview or more information, contact IPS Deputy Communications Director Olivia Alperstein at (202) 704-9011 or olivia@ips-dc.org.
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