As the World Economic Forum begins in Davos, world leaders, CEOs and business leaders have descended to Switzerland in their hundreds. But how did these high flyers arrive?

He World Economic Forum (Wef) urged its delegates to consider more Sustainable trips This year. They did it for free to travel there by train and provided snow grips for shoes to encourage attendees to walk instead of driving at the conference.

But delegates listened and chose one more Sustainable transport Solution for Davos?

How many private airplanes flew to Davos in 2025?

According to data on the Flightradar24 flight monitoring website, the private jet activity at airports around Davos rose significantly in recent days.

In Zurich, the great airport closest to Davos, 54 private jets He landed on Monday, an increase of 170 percent compared to the average last week.

A spokesman for Zurich The airport told Euronews Green: “Immediately before and during the Wef, we recorded around 1,000 additional flight movements. These can be business airplanes, state airplanes or helicopter flights.”

Other airports frequented by Davos delegates include Saint Moritz, Friedrichshafen and St. Gallen-Alternheim. The three had a higher private plane activity on Monday, with Friedrichshafen watching 33 percent more airplanes than the average.

In Zurich, the longest private jet The flight arrived at lunch time from Kailua-Kona in Hawaii. Operated by the autonomous firm Netjets, the 7500 7500 72 million 72 million 7500 72 million flew for 14 hours and 40 minutes to cover the 12,404 km to get to Zurich.

Other very long flights arrived from California, Seattle and Beijing, although we cannot say with certainty if their passengers were heading to Davos.

Several flights were less than 500 km, including one operated by FAI Rent-A-Jet from Milan, which flew only for 204 km to reach the airport.

Two other flights from Milan, one from Genoa and two of Paris He also landed in Zurich on Monday, all covering less than 500 km.

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It is impossible to say what flights transported delegates, since most were operated by Charter companies, including Flexflight, Vistajet and Netjets. However, some officials used their government aircraft, which facilitates identifying where they were.

Representatives of the Libyan Government reached 5A-LBy, a legacy of Embraer 600. The Iraqi government and Polish The Government chose huge Boeing 737 to fly to Switzerland, airplanes for more than 160 people, but they probably just have a handful.

Soil reports indicate that the damage does not always end when the aircraft lands. Many delegates were seen to get into helicopters to take them from private airports to Davos, which adds to the emissions linked to this conference.

Mondays, Greenpeace The activists blocked access to Davos Lago Heliport, asking for “reforms that will allow fair taxes on the wealth of the world’s super rich.”

Greenpeace was occupied again today. Two activists entered the main hall of the Congress and left a banner that said “taxes to the super rich! Fund of a fair and green future.”

“The increase in private trips in Jet to Davos again this year, despite the fact that the WeF intensified their efforts to get participants to choose more efficient forms of energy to arrive, it means that the WEF needs to visibly take advantage of the initiative while the leaders are in the room, says Denise Auclair, director of the Smart Smart SMART campaign of Transportation trips of NGO and the environment.

“The action in private airplanes and sustainable trips must be put directly on the forum agenda this week. The Wef needs to demonstrate that, instead of being a taxpayer to shoot private jet travel emissions, you can start solutions so that Davos leads with the example.”

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Why don’t companies reduce private Jet trips?

For business leaders and politicians, time is often cited as the reason not to take a train. The fastest arrival of private jets is considered positive, since they will have more time at both ends to continue working.

While this argument contains some water for distant delegates who arrive from Hawaii or the United States, there is always the option of a commercial flight. According to Transport and Environment, an executive who flies from the United States to Switzerland could save 87 percent of its carbon emissions when taking a public flight.

On short trips, the excuse becomes even weaker. Traveling from Milan, for example, takes about an hour in a private jet and three hours and 12 minutes for train. But trains have large tables and wifi on board, which facilitates work during the trip.

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Transportation and the environment contacted about 100 companies known for their use in private jets to request that they undertake Davos in private. Specifically, they asked companies to travel by railway within Europe or consider sending representatives based on locations accessible by train instead of abroad.

Only two companies responded with a positive commitment to avoid private jet trips. The CEO of Saint-Gobain, a French manufacturing giant, said he would travel by train to Davos. KPMG, one of the accounting groups of ‘Cuatro Grandes’, said that its delegates would wear commercial flights and lane To get there.

In an open letter, several environmental NGOs requested an impulse to sustainable trips for Davos 2025.

“The use of a private jet is emblematic of the global inequality of resources and efforts to address planetary threats,” says the letter. “Any private plane that goes to Davos sends the message that the big global companies, with all their means and to be able to lead with the example, lack the real will and the responsibility of making simple changes to help maintain heating below 1.5 degrees.”

“Do these executives really want to see the reputation of your company linked to these unsustainable, unequal and ultra cost means of transport?” AUCLAIR QUESTIONS. “Instead, they should follow the example of the main companies that avoid private planes and take advantage of Davos’s opportunity to show the way to energy efficiency trips.”

How much environmental damage cause private planes?

Private jets are the most polluting means of transport per kilometer of passengers. Despite the impulse of sustainable alternatives, the University of Sweden of Linnaeus discovered that private airplanes emissions increased 46 percent between 2019 and 2023.

“There are many people who use these aircraft like taxis, where you cover the distance by aircraft simply because it is more convenient,” said Professor Stefan Gossling at the University of Linnaeus to the BBC. “If someone’s flight broadcasts as much as an average human being in a year, just to see a football game, then maybe it shows that these people think they are out of the standards that we have as a global community.”

In 2023, private jets It produced 15.6 million tons of CO2, the equivalent of driving almost 40 million miles in a gasoline car. Although it is not a significant taxsence to global emissions (1.8 percent), the fact that it is produced by such a small number of people is significant.

To put it in perspective, aviation as a whole is responsible for approximately four percent of annual global CO2 emissions.

Between 2019 and 2023, almost half of the 19 million private jet trips studied short distances of less than 500 km.

A 2021 report from the European Transportation and Environment Federation discovered that private planes is five to 14 times more passenger than commercial flights and 50 times more pollutants than trains.

There are also emissions that are not CO2 to also consider, which are unfortunately sub -governed by companies and users of private airplanes.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), “the burn emissions for aircraft fuel consist of Hydroxil) “((UHC), Aerosols and Hydroxil Traces)” ((UHC), Aerosolas and Hydroxil Paths) “(((UHC), Aerosolas and Hydroxil Trace) Hydroxil) “(UHC), Hydroxil compats)”.

Most of these unpleasant chemicals are released to the atmosphere at very high altitudes, usually about eight to 13 km above the average sea level. Private jets fly higher than commercial traffic, so it deposits these compounds in the atmosphere.

The consequences of these emissions are not well known, although a study by Lee et. Alabama. In 2021 he suggested that the impact of emissions that are not CO2 could be four times larger than CO2 alone.

The entire evidence points to the positive results of the reduction of private jet trips. But while world leaders continue to value their time more than our future, it seems that nothing will change.