A spokesperson for Taylor Swift has rejected claims that the singer is responsible for the majority of flights taken on her private jet, calling the allegations “blatantly incorrect”. The denial follows a report by sustainability marketing firm Yard that named Swift as the celebrity with the highest private jet emissions so far this year.
According to Yard’s analysis, Swift’s plane has undertaken 170 flights between 1 January and 29 July 2022, totalling 15.9 days in the air. The firm calculated the total flight emissions for 2022 at 8,293.54 tonnes of CO2 – more than 1,100 times the average person’s annual emissions. However, the spokesperson clarified that “Taylor’s jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals”.
Yard compiled the data from the Celebrity Jets Twitter account, which automatically tracks certain aircraft. The firm aimed to highlight the environmental impact of private jet usage after fans criticised celebrities such as Drake, Travis Scott and Kylie Jenner for taking very short flights amid the climate crisis. In July, Jenner posted a photo of her and Scott’s jets on Instagram with the caption “you wanna take mine or yours?”; the Celebrity Jets account later recorded a 17-minute flight for Jenner that day.
Drake, who owns a modified Boeing 767 typically seating hundreds, faced backlash for a series of sub-20-minute flights. He defended himself by stating the aircraft was being moved to storage with no passengers on board. One fan responded: “OK but that’s worse, you don’t see how that’s worse?” Neither Drake nor Jenner appeared in Yard’s top ten worst offenders.
Swift was followed in the rankings by boxer Floyd Mayweather (7,076.8 tonnes), Jay-Z (6,981.3 tonnes), Alex Rodriguez, Blake Shelton, Steven Spielberg, Kim Kardashian, Mark Wahlberg, Oprah Winfrey and Travis Scott. Private jets emit more than 33 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, exceeding Denmark’s total emissions, and are five to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes per passenger.
Yard’s digital sustainability director, Chris Butterworth, commented: “It’s easy to get lost in the dazzling lives of the rich and famous, but, unfortunately, they’re a massive part of the CO2e problem we have with the aviation industry.” The firm acknowledged that its research was based on data from the Celebrity Jets page and that it was unclear whether the plane owners were on each flight.
