Less than 1% of high income households account for nearly half the international trips from India, according to an analysis by a U.K.-based climate charity called Possible.
The report titled “Elite Status: Global Inequalities in Flying” reviews evidence from several reports on air travel to build a case for international policies that impose penalties such as a “frequent flyer levy” on the rich to manage demand and control aviation’s climate impacts.
The report shows that .9% of high income households account for 44.9% of outbound trips, 40.3% mid-income households 9.8% of foreign trips, while 89.2% of travellers from low-income households undertook a mere 14.8% of trips.
The analysis is from a 2017 report by Mastercard which compared outbound travel from 17 Asia-Pacific countries against household income in 2016.
Further, households with incomes greater than $30,000 in many developing Asian countries actually take more overseas trips than the average household in many developed Asian countries.
The analysis suggests that the top 10% of the global population by income (~550 million people) are responsible for 76% of the energy consumption associated with package holidays, while the share of the bottom 10% is zero.
