As the iconic Cannes Film Festival approaches, climate campaigners and former aviation professionals are shining a harsh spotlight on the luxury private jet travel habit of Hollywood’s biggest names, calling their excessive carbon and fuel use a deeply unethical indulgence amid a mounting global energy crisis.
Last year’s festival alone saw 750 private jet flights carry A-list stars and industry executives to the French Riviera, according to new data compiled by Brussels-based environmental nonprofit Transport and Environment (T&E). That volume of travel burned through a staggering 2 million liters of jet kerosene — a footprint equal to the fuel consumption of 14,000 commercial passengers flying the route between Paris and Athens, T&E’s aviation lead Jerome du Boucher told AFP in an interview this week.
Anthony Viaux, a former Air France pilot and one of the dozens of aviation professionals backing the campaign, argued that the wasteful consumption by the rich and famous is far more than just out of touch. “The rich and famous burning through scarce fuel to get to a film festival isn’t just tone deaf, it’s obscene,” Viaux said. With the ongoing conflict in the Middle East pushing global fuel markets into chaos and many nations facing acute fuel shortages, the global community can no longer justify reserving massive volumes of scarce fuel for elite luxury travel, campaigners say.
At present, EU regulations leave two-thirds of all private jet flights exempt from carbon taxes under the bloc’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), a loophole T&E traces back to EU policymakers’ fear of retaliatory action from the former U.S. Trump administration if private aviation were added to the scheme. This creates a stark double standard: ordinary commercial passengers flying within the EU are required to pay these carbon levies, while the world’s wealthiest elite escape the cost entirely.
The call for reform has even won support from wealthy advocates for change. Julia Davies, an investor and co-founder of Patriotic Millionaires UK, pointed out that private aviation is a luxury accessible only to a tiny sliver of the global population, yet that same elite group avoids the fuel and carbon taxes that ordinary working people pay every day when they commute to work.
Campaigners are pointing to a small but high-profile example to prove change is possible: last year, Chilean-American star Pedro Pascal — who gained global fame for his lead role in *The Last of Us* and *Narcos* — traveled to Cannes on a commercial economy flight, defying the unwritten rule that A-listers arrive via private transport. Former private jet pilot Katie Thompson argues there is no reason every other celebrity cannot follow Pascal’s lead, or opt for low-carbon train travel for short European routes to the Riviera.
The current global fuel crunch, driven by months of heightened tension around the Strait of Hormuz following U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, has created widespread disruption across European aviation already this year. France alone has canceled more than 500 flights in recent months, and up to 20 million passengers across Germany are expected to face scheduling disruptions and shortages during the peak summer holiday travel period, du Boucher noted. Against this backdrop, campaigners say the crisis presents a rare opening to force long-overdue reform of private aviation regulations.
T&E is currently lobbying European national governments to enact a full ban on private jet travel, arguing that scarce kerosene reserves should be reserved for essential travel rather than elite luxury. The group is also calling for EU policymakers to close the existing ETS loophole, requiring all private jet flights and international routes into the bloc to pay full carbon taxes, regardless of external political pressure. “EU policymakers shouldn’t let Trump’s administration dictate the rule,” Viaux said.
T&E data shows that even a simple shift from private to commercial travel for all Cannes attendees would put the festival 40 percent of the way to meeting its 2030 carbon emissions reduction target, a meaningful step forward for an event that has pledged to cut its climate impact. AFP has reached out to the Cannes Film Festival organizing committee for comment on the campaign’s demands, and no response has been issued as of yet.