Re: Big Beautiful Bill’ will subsidize the billionaire private jet class

Dear Editor:

Your readers should know that the guest opinion you ran on July 11 (“The ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ will subsidize the billionaire private jet class”) uses one report’s questionable data to attack business aviation while ignoring the sector’s environmental record and disregarding the reasons companies of all sizes rely on the aircraft to succeed.

First, the author relies on a report that calculated emissions from jets using a dubious extrapolation of flight-tracking data. Worse, the report acknowledges that about 12% of flights it examined had “incomplete departure or arrival information.” This data shortcoming alone might be the study’s disqualifying flaw – after all, one likely wouldn’t make similarly definitive conclusions about emissions from other types of commutes without verifiable departure and arrival information.

The opinion also omits other important facts. For example, business aviation has slashed emissions by 40% over the last four decades, largely through the development of increasingly fuel-efficient engines and lighter airframes, and that new aircraft models are up to 35% more efficient than their predecessors.

The author also doesn’t mention that business aviation accounts for less than one half of 1% of all transportation emissions or that our industry is on track to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 with further innovations, including new aircraft technologies. Why were readers left in the dark about this information?

Finally, in offering a distorted picture of business aviation, the article misses the larger point about its value: business aircraft allow companies to optimize efficiency, productivity and flexibility in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.

Sincerely,

Ed Bolen
President and CEO
National Business Aviation Association