Flight shame, or flygskam (Swedish), is a social movement that encourages people to avoid flying because air travel harms the environment. This harm includes large amounts of carbon emissions that contribute to climate change caused by humans. The movement began in Sweden and was promoted by climate activist Greta Thunberg. It is sometimes called an anti-flying or anti-flight movement.

Flight shame describes a person’s discomfort about using energy in ways that hurt the climate and environment. It also describes air travelers as people doing things that are not good for society. In Sweden, the term smygflyga means "sneak-flying," which refers to flying secretly to avoid criticism.

The movement started in Sweden in 2018 and became more popular in northern Europe in 2019. The Swedish word "flygskam" literally means "flight shame."

Origins

In 2017, Staffan Lindberg, a Swedish singer, is said to have created the term. Björn Ferry, an Olympic athlete, was among the first important supporters of the idea. Malena Ernman, an opera singer and mother of Greta Thunberg, a teenage activist, publicly stated she would stop flying. Greta Thunberg helped spread awareness of the movement. More Swedish celebrities joined the effort later. In 2018, Maja Rosén started the We Stay on the Ground movement in Sweden. This group promises to stop flying for one year once 100,000 people in a country agree to do the same. The term became widely used by English speakers in 2019.

Tågskryt

The Swedish word "Tågskryt," which means "train brag," came from the flygskam movement. This movement encourages people to take trains instead of airplanes. It also asks people to share photos of their train trips on social media and use the hashtag #tågskryt.

Another term from the flygskam movement is "att smygflyga," which means "to fly in secret."

Impact

About 2.5 percent of all human carbon emissions worldwide come from commercial flights. Planes also release other gases, such as nitrogen oxide and water vapor, which form contrails and affect the environment. When the flight shame movement began, experts predicted that the number of flights would increase, even though the aviation industry was trying to reduce emissions.

Reducing aviation emissions globally needs changes in policies because current rules and business practices have not adequately addressed climate change. However, individuals have helped by choosing travel options with lower carbon footprints and using their influence as voters, social activists, and leaders to encourage governments and companies to act.

In Sweden, more people are choosing trains for travel, while fewer are taking domestic flights. SJ, Sweden’s main train company, sold 1.5 million more tickets in 2018 than the year before. Swedavia, which manages Sweden’s airports, reported a 9% drop in domestic flights in 2018. Passenger numbers at Sweden’s ten busiest airports fell by 5% in the summer of 2019 compared to the previous year.

A similar trend occurred in Germany. Deutsche Bahn AG, Germany’s main train service, reported a record number of travelers in 2019. German airports saw a 12% decrease in passengers taking domestic flights in November 2019 compared to the same time the year before.

A 2019 survey by Swiss bank UBS found that 21% of people in the United States, France, England, and Germany said they flew less in the past year.

This pattern has not been seen in the Netherlands. A 2019 survey by NBTC-Nipo Research showed that nearly 60% of Dutch people said they consider sustainability when planning trips, but 5% more planned to fly in the future than in 2019. In 2020, the same survey found that 10.1 million holiday flights occurred in the Netherlands, a 3% increase, while holiday car trips dropped by 3%. This marked the first time flying holidays outnumbered driving holidays in the Netherlands.

In Belgium, flight shame has not had a major effect. In 2019, 35 million passengers traveled by plane, a record high. However, Brussels Airport reported a 0.5% decrease in the number of flights, even though passenger numbers rose by 2.5%. This suggests that planes were carrying more passengers per flight.

Some U.S. airline leaders were worried that flight shame, popularized by Greta Thunberg, might slow the growth of air travel. In 2019, global air travel growth dropped to 4%, the lowest in a decade.

Flight shame is more likely to happen when people are surrounded by others who care about the environmental impact of flying. It depends on social influences and how much pressure individuals feel to justify their choices. People who want to avoid criticism may appear more committed to the movement. Flight shame is most common during vacation travel.

By 2019, the flight shame movement inspired many organizations, including universities and companies like Klarna Bank AB, to stop employees from taking short-haul flights and discourage long-haul flights. In 2023, France banned short-haul domestic flights on routes that can be served by high-speed trains within a 2.5-hour radius. However, the ban only affected three routes from Paris’s Orly Airport to Bordeaux, Nantes, and Lyon.

The airline industry sees flight shame as a threat to its business. In 2019, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) discussed ways to address flight shame. Some airlines, like easyJet, planned to spend tens of millions of British pounds on carbon offset programs.

By April 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a sharp drop in global air travel, with airlines reducing trips by up to 95%. This decline was much larger than the impact of the flight shame movement. Experts from Harvard Business School and the University of Leeds suggest that some changes in air travel during the pandemic, such as reduced flying, might continue after the pandemic ends to help address climate change.

Public debate

A 2009 German short film called The Bill, made by Germanwatch, shows how people in developed countries often think about travel and the effects it has on the environment. It also looks at the social pressures that influence people’s choices about traveling.

British writer George Marshall studied common reasons people give for not reducing their travel or for justifying recent trips. In an informal study, he talked to people who care about climate change and asked them about their recent long-distance flights and why they thought their travel was acceptable. He noticed that all these people had jobs based on the idea that giving people information can lead to change. However, he pointed out that this idea is not always true.

In a blog post, Alexandre de Juniac, who was the director of the airline group IATA, said, “Flying is freedom.” He also claimed that limiting travel to trains or boats would go against progress made over the past century. He argued that relying on virtual meetings ignores the human experiences that make life meaningful.

Research professor Brené Brown explained that feeling guilty about flying is more helpful than feeling ashamed. She said, “Shame is about how you see yourself, while guilt is about what you did.”

In 2011, S. Cohen found that both air travel and concerns about its environmental effects were increasing. These changes were balanced by technology, resources, self-control, rules, and social norms, including the idea that flying too much is not acceptable. In 2009, Stefan Gössling noted that air travel growth creates a problem in a world with limits on carbon emissions, as a small group of people who travel a lot are responsible for most of the air travel.

In 2018, 11% of the world’s population took a flight, 4% traveled internationally, and 1% of people caused half of all aviation emissions, according to a 2020 study from Linnaeus University.

In 2021, Evelien van Leeuwen wrote about “flight shaming” and looked at why some people chose to pay to reduce their flight’s carbon emissions through KLM’s CO2ZERO program. This program allowed passengers to invest in projects that create clean energy. The study found that most people were motivated by environmental concerns, but cost and convenience also played a role. It concluded that while paying to reduce emissions can help, it is not enough to solve the climate crisis.

In 2014, a German survey showed that Green Party voters flew more often than supporters of other political parties. For example, 49% of Green voters flew once a year, compared to 42% of Left Party voters, 36% of CDU/CSU (Conservative) supporters, and 32% of SPD (Labour) supporters. None of the Green voters had never flown, while 17% to 13% of others had never flown. Only 48% of Green voters agreed that it is good that many people can afford to fly, while 69% to 77% of others agreed. Green Party supporters often have higher education and income levels and travel frequently for work or tourism. In Britain in 2015, a survey by Travelzoo found that Green Party supporters were most likely to take long-haul flights.

In February 2020, a French survey by Paul Chiambaretto and others at Montpellier Business School showed that 90% of people overestimate how much air travel contributes to CO2 emissions. Most people think air travel causes more than 10% of emissions, but the real number is 2–3%. About 90% of people believe emissions per passenger have stayed the same or increased, but they actually decreased by 25% in 15 years. Many people also overestimate how much fuel modern planes use. In 2019, 37% of French people avoided flying, with 15% (5.6% overall) choosing other travel methods for environmental reasons. After the COVID-19 pandemic, 61% of people said they planned to fly in 2021, mainly because of travel restrictions, not environmental concerns. People who avoided flying before the pandemic were more likely to care about the environment.

In early 2022, the European Investment Bank reported that 52% of Europeans under 30, 37% of people aged 30–64, and 25% of those 65 and older planned to fly for summer holidays in 2022. Also, 27% of those under 30, 17% of people aged 30–64, and 12% of those 65 and older planned to travel to distant destinations by air.