Around 100 environmental activists disrupted the largest private jet sales fair in Europe on Tuesday, briefly interrupting flight traffic at Geneva Airport.
The activists, who represented environmental groups such as Greenpeace, Stay Grounded and Extinction Rebellion, targeted the annual European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva, where they demanded a ban on private jets.
EBACE is Europe’s largest—and one of the world’s biggest—annual gatherings of business aviation industry stakeholders, including sellers, buyers and manufacturers of private jets.
The three-day event is taking place at an exhibition space on the edge of Geneva Airport, the second largest in Switzerland. As part of the event, a number of private jets are on display across an area of the tarmac.
© Thomas Wolf/ Stay Grounded/Greenpeace
The event is hosted by two U.S. and European private jet industry trade groups, the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) and the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA).
The size of the global private jet fleet has more than doubled in the past two decades, from around 9,900 in 2000 to roughly 23,100 in mid-2022. That’s according to figures from a report published by the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and Patriotic Millionaires, a group of high-net-worth Americans concerned about inequality. In 2022, there were around 5.3 million private flights—a record number, according to the report.
Since the start of the pandemic, private jet use has increased by around a fifth, and emissions from these aircraft have increased more than 23 percent, figures from the report show.
Another report, published by the Brussels-based environmental think tank Transport & Environment, found that private jets are five to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes per passenger. Private jets are also twice as likely to be used for very short trips (less than 500 kilometers, or about 310 miles)—within Europe at least—when compared with flights in commercial aviation, according to the report.
“Aviation’s climate impact is disproportionate and growing fast. But it is caused by a very small group of people,” the report’s authors wrote. “Just 1 percent of people cause 50 percent of global aviation emissions, from all types of air travel. This report exposes the outsized role played by the super rich hopping on private jets for super short distances.”
During the protest at EBACE, activists in yellow vests occupied jets being exhibited at the event, while some individuals chained or handcuffed themselves to aircraft parts and gangways. Protesters also blocked the entrance to the exhibition in an attempt to prevent prospective buyers from entering.
Activists stuck large, tobacco-style health warning labels on the jets bearing statements such as “Private jets burn our future” and “Kill our planet.”
“For over 20 years, Europe’s super-rich have popped champagne behind closed doors at EBACE while shopping for the latest toxic private jets,” Klara Maria Schenk, transport campaigner for Greenpeace’s Mobility for All campaign, said in a statement.
She continued: “Sales of private jets are skyrocketing, and with them the one percent’s hugely unfair contribution to the climate crisis—while the most vulnerable people deal with the damage. It is high time for politicians to put a stop to this unjust and excessive pollution and ban private jets.”
City police tried to tackle protesters and doused some with pepper spray as they pulled down a wire fence in one location to gain access to the exhibition area, the Associated Press reported. In another location, activists scaled a fence using ladders. Police said on Tuesday they had detained around 80 people.
Activist groups said the action at the private jet fair was not intended to disrupt commercial air traffic at Geneva Airport.
“The goal was really to target private jets, which are the most polluting mode of transport there is and are only accessible to an extreme minority of people, who will spend the carbon budget of all the other people who never fly,” Joel Perret with Extinction Rebellion Geneva told Agence France-Presse.
In a statement Tuesday, Greenpeace said activists decided not to enter or cross taxiways or runways at any time and only to access service roads. “This in no way interferes with the safe operation of flights,” the organization said in a statement.
But a spokesperson for Geneva Airport told the AP that inbound and outbound flights were halted temporarily, citing security concerns.
In a statement, Geneva Airport told Newsweek that several dozen activists “broke and entered three different locations” on the tarmac at 11:35 a.m. local time on Tuesday, infiltrating the EBACE exhibition space.
Air traffic was completely suspended from 11:40 a.m. to 12:40 p.m., with seven inbound flights diverted. Other flights were delayed. Airport authorities said they planned to file criminal complaints following the incident. Four people, including activists and security staff, received treatment for injuries or because they felt unwell.
“This is a completely unacceptable form of protest. We condemn the action,” EBAA Chairman Juergen Wiese and NBAA President and Chief Executive Ed Bolen said in a joint statement.
“Business aviation is deeply committed to climate action,” they said, adding that the industry is “collectively focused on achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.”
Newsweek has contacted Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and EBACE for comment by email.