Mallorca flights linked to 19.3 million tonnes of CO₂

Mallorca’s Palma airport has a 19.3 million-tonne CO₂ footprint linked to flights arriving between 2000 and 2024. Environmental group Terraferida published the calculation on 9 November, using Eurostat data. Over that period, the airport received 249.9 million passengers, a tally that excludes private aircraft.

Why distance matters

Terraferida’s model counts the fuel aircraft burn as they approach, land, stand on the ground and take off. That part of a flight uses fuel regardless of how long the journey is, the group says, and the resulting pollution occurs directly over Mallorca.

The group counted 1.7 million flight arrivals from 2000 to 2024. Routes between Palma and the airports those flights came from added up to 3,569 million kilometres for outward and return journeys. Both flight numbers and distance shape the emissions total; flights from central European countries account for much of it.

Short island flights count for less

Palma received 90,690 flights from Eivissa on Ibiza and 76,464 from Maó on Menorca during the same period. Despite those numbers, the short routes account for only about 2% of the overall impact, Terraferida says.

The group says flights, passenger numbers and polluting emissions rose almost continuously alongside tourism. It argues that growth in tourist accommodation and residential capacity must be curbed, or flights and infrastructure will keep expanding too.

Topics: Air travel · Environment · Palma

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com