Emissions from travel can be some of our biggest carbon footprints! Sometimes, when traveling internationally or long distances, we have to fly. However, it’s worthwhile to compare driving and flying and how to reduce our emissions.

First, let’s look at shorter local flights and consider the increasingly fuel-efficient planes used today. Take the average flight from SLC to LAX, about 600 miles. The Airbus A220, a more fuel-efficient plane, would emit about 300 kg of CO2 per passenger one-way. Driving a mid-range gas car this distance would produce around 219 kg of CO2 total for the car, meaning that as you add more passengers, the per-person CO2 cost would significantly decrease. Getting to LA from SLC in a car with 2 passengers would produce about 109 kg of CO2 per person, versus 300 kg per person on a plane.

Now, let’s look at a longer flight. To fly from SLC to Honolulu–about 3,000 miles–you would be on a larger plane, such as an Airbus A330, which can hold about 250 people. The average CO2 emissions for a flight from SLC to HNL are approximately 1.1 tons of CO2/passenger. If you were to drive this same distance in an average mid-size gasoline car, you would emit about 1 ton of CO2 total for the trip. While not necessarily realistic, this calculation does tell us that it is still more fuel-efficient to drive long distances than fly. 

In basically every scenario, driving a moderately fuel-efficient car is more environmentally friendly than flying, though the efficiency of flying increases the further you go. Driving, especially carpooling, is usually the more environmentally friendly option. When thinking about air travel, it’s important that we understand the scope of our impact. The website https://www.myclimate.org/en/ offers a helpful carbon emissions calculator for both air and ground travel, which was used for the calculations of this article, and may be helpful in understanding your carbon footprint from travel.

By Mia Moore