Significant reductions in passengers flying in Sweden as anti-flying movement takes-off

The number of passengers who flew through Swedish airports fell four percent in 2019, Swedish state-owned airport operator Swedavia said on Friday, with the drop led by a decline in domestic traffic.

Al Jazeera reports that  Swedish-born movement of “flight shaming”, which calls for curbs to air travel due to its environmental impact, has gained prominence over the past year and the aviation industry is closely watching travel trends in countries such as Germany and Sweden, where the campaign has begun to have an impact.

More than 40 million passengers travelled through 10 Swedavia airports, down from the previous year’s all-time high above 42 million, with domestic travel down nine percent, the airport operator said in a statement. Domestic travel fell for the second year in a row. In December, domestic travel fell by seven percent and overall traffic was down four percent.

Germany has seen similar trends, with ADV industry group predicting a 2.9 percent fall in takeoffs and landings at German airports in 2020.

The anti-flying movement emerged in 2017 after Swedish singer Staffan Lindberg pledged to give up flying and the movement has spread amid increasing concerns over global warming, adding the Swedish term “flygskam”, or “flight shame”, to the vocabulary. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg last year sailed across the North Atlantic twice to avoid flying.

Via Al Jazeera