Pollution: who uses private jets in Toulouse?
Toulouse is far from being the capital of business aviation. But a few hundred private jet trips are made each year, with businessmen on board.
The controversy had no trouble (re) taking off. Already this summer, private jets were in the sights of ecologists (see box). On social networks, many users have denounced the abusive use of certain owners. The (short) repeated journeys of some personalities have been singled out. According to climate activists, in a world where the effects of global warming are increasingly visible, these polluting journeys no longer have a place. So when, this Monday, during a press conference, Christophe Galtier, the coach of Paris Saint-Germain, was ironic when a journalist asked him why the team did not travel by train to go to Nantes, the controversy over the jets has revived. If PSG players use this means of transport, they are not the only ones.
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Nearly 600 kilometers from the capital, in Toulouse, business trips are also made. In a whole other dimension. The main airport of the metropolis, that of Blagnac, qualifies the activity as marginal.
“It concerns few flights on all routes”, reports Toulouse Blagnac airport, without specifying their number. Near Cugnaux, Toulouse-Francazal airport claims 195 business flights in 2021, “a much lower figure than at Blagnac”, according to Sabine Monties, the operations manager.
“Business aviation responds to a demand”
In Francazal, movements by private jet, which pollute between five and fourteen times more than by airliner, represent between 5 and 6% of flights. A figure that is expected to grow in the coming years. The construction of a hangar dedicated to business aviation should double private jet journeys in Toulouse’s second airport. “It’s a stigmatized activity at the moment, but we need to refocus the debate. Private jets are responsible for 0.06% of French CO2 emissions”, slips Sabine Monties. In recent years, business aviation has continued to grow.
In Toulouse, where jet owners are rare, the majority of the clientele is made up of businessmen “in a hurry” who rent a plane – between 3,000 and tens of thousands of euros – for a business trip.
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“These are essentially entrepreneurs, who enter the closures of commercial lines and a complicated rail network, turn to business aviation in order to optimize their times”, underlines the Francazal operations manager, who specifies that 90 %of private jet flights departing from Francazal are domestic.
Isabelle Clerc, manager of Aéroaffaires, a jet rental company operating in Toulouse, confirms the upward trend in the sector. “Our clients, businessmen, cannot afford to miss appointments. The business jet responds to a demand,” she explains.
If the opponents of private jet trips are more and more numerous… so are the number of users!
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