Protestors blockade Farnborough airport over private jet expansion plans (Image: James Knapp/Extinction Rebellion)
Locals are calling for a “ban on all private jets” as they fight against the expansion plans of a UK
Farnborough Airport, in Hampshire, has submitted plans to increase its annual flight limit, which, according to the protestors, will double the number of private jet flights to 70,000 a year.
Campaigners from , Farnborough Noise, Blackwater Valley Friends of the Earth, Alton Climate Action Network and the local residents blockaded the main entrance on Sunday, holding banners and releasing coloured smoke flares.
The protest comes after a consultation period on Farnborough Airport’s expansion plans, which ended in October 2024, and left the campaigners and locals fuming.
Under the new proposal, the airport’s annual weekend flight limit will double from 8,900 to 18,900 flights, and its annual flight limit will increase from 50,000 to 70,000 flights.
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The protest follows a consultation period on Farnborough Airport’s expansion plans (Image: Jonathon Vines/ Extinction Rebellion)
Rushmoor Borough Council has yet to make a decision on the proposed increase in flights.
Peter Knapp, an air quality scientist and journalist, told Express.co.uk: “We live in a grossly unequal world, where the richest consume far more than they should.
“The expansion of an airport to allow more private planes amplifies this inequality even further.
“More noise, more air pollution, and more carbon emissions from multimillionaires in a climate emergency where consumption and inequality need to decrease is unacceptable.”
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Rushmoor Borough Council has yet to make a decision on the proposed increase. (Image: Crispin Hughes/ Extinction Rebellion)
In a statement, Extinction Rebellion said that the 33,120 private jet flights to and from the airport in 2024 carried an average of 2.5 passengers, with each passenger responsible for the emission of nine times as much carbon as an economy flight to the US and 20 times that to Spain.
It stated: “For the limited benefit it provides to a small number of people, private aviation has a disproportionately large impact on climate change due to its high carbon emissions.
“Per passenger mile, flying in a private jet is the most inefficient and most carbon-intensive mode of transport.
“It epitomizes the worst of climate injustice, where a few people emit large amounts of carbon for the sake of a journey that can be taken by a scheduled flight or, in many cases, by train.”