Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Members of the environmental group 'Just Stop Oil' spray orange paint on 2 private jets to draw ...
[+] attention to carbon emissions at the Stansted Airport in London, United Kingdom on June 20, 2024. (Photo by Just Stop Oil / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images) Anadolu via Getty Images The airline industry will finally fully recover from COVID-19 in 2024. After declining to just 16.
9 million flights in 2020, airlines will surpass their 2019 record of 38.9 million and hit a new peak of 40.1 million flights in 2024.
This year will also see a record 4.7 billion airline passengers. But as COVID recedes, a new threat to the $996 billion airline industry has appeared.
Radical activists, primarily climate and pro-Palestinian, have targeted aviation and airports in the U.S. and Europe.
So far most of the damage has been financial and in delays to thousands of travelers. However, police officers have been injured, while aircraft have had to divert to avoid landing on people whose hands were glued to runways. On June 19, a pair of self-proclaimed climate activists apparently sawed open a chain link fence at Stansted Airport in the UK.
Once inside, they attacked two private jet aircraft with a paint spraying gun, doing at least $65,000 worth of damage. They initially claimed that one jet belonged to megastar singer Taylor Swift, although her plane was not at the airport. Proud of their actions, the two British protesters, Jennifer Kow.
