Japan to Las Vegas: what is Taylor Swift’s carbon footprint for traveling to the Super Bowl from Tokyo?

Perhaps in other circumstances, Taylor Swift might have been able to make arrangements to attend the Super Bowl at a more leisurely pace. As it has turned out, she will be on the other side of the world entertaining masses of Asian Swifties on the eve of NFL’s showpiece event - in which her boyfriend Travis Kelce will be attempting to win back-to-back titles with the Chiefs.

Taylor Swift, half a world away in Japan

The singer has been supporting Kelce right the way through the regular season and playoffs, cheering him on from a VIP suite at Arrowhead stadium on a number of occasions - so understandably, she won’t want to miss the biggest game of all. Taylor resumed her globe-trotting Eras Tour in Japan this week. She will complete the last of four nights at the 55,000-seater Tokyo Dome on Saturday 10 February, hotfoot it back to the States for the Super Bowl LVIII the following day, then have a few days to get her breath back before she’s back hopping on a plane for another long-haul trip to resume the Asia leg of her tour in Australia.

What plane does Taylor Swift use when on tour?

While it might not feature among the longest, direct flights, the trip from Tokyo to Las Vegas is still a very time-consuming and tiring journey. From door to door, the 9,600 kilometer journey will be the best part of a day - flight time is around around 12 and a half hours and on top of that, you have to factor in travelling to and from both airports, checking in, luggage, passport control etc. Taylor will likely be fast-tracked so much of the process will be quicker than it is for us mere mortals who use standard commercial flights.

It is expected that the Cruel Summer singer would make the trip back on her private jet, a 2009 Dassault Falcon 7X, which can accommodate up to 12 passengers but also uses a lot more fuel than a commercial airliner - about 10 tens more.

Calculating Taylor Swift’s carbon footprint

The one advantage is the time difference. The singer will be flying from a different time zone - Tokyo (JST) is 17 hours ahead of Las Vegas (PT), which buys her more time. A direct charter flight from one of Tokyo’s major airports (Haneda or Narita) to Las Vegas (Harry Reid International Airport or North Las Vegas Airport) would add around 1.20 metric tons to Taylor Swift’s individual carbon footprint. The return flight to Sydney for her shows at the end of the month would add a further 0.99 metric tons, bring her total to catch the Chiefs at Super Bowl LVIII to 2.19 metric tons.

Due to the amount of travelling her job requires, Taylor Swift’s carbon footprint is obviously way, way bigger than your average person’s. In the first half of 2022, she took a total of 170 flights, spending just under 23,000 minutes in the air. Total flight emissions for that year were calculated at 8,293.54 tons.

A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide and methane) that are generated by our activity (travel, heating, food, water usage... etc). The average, annual individual carbon footprint for a person in the United States is 14-16 tons - among the highest rates in the world. The global average is around 4.7 tons.