Taylor Swift and Elon can finally fly private without being followed by the new FAA rule

If there is one thing that the rich love, it is doing things that allow them to enjoy their disproportionate wealth. And if there is one thing they hate, it is required to account for these things. Thus, this new rule of the Federal Aviation Administration is just in their wheelhouse: a recent change in the agency’s rules will facilitate the owners of private jets to hide their registration information, which makes it more difficult to identify and monitor their movement.

Under the FAA updated policy, planes owners may request that property information, including the name and address of the person in possession of the jet, be made private and not accessible to the public via the FAA services. Jet owners will be able to submit a request through the Civil Aviation Register Electronic Services (CARES) to retain registration information. And just in the event that the request system is not sufficient, the agency “also potentially” assesses “personally identifiable information from private aircraft and private operators by default, no required request.

The change is part of a mandate under the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, which gave the agency two years to develop a system that would allow owners and operators of private jets to hide their personal information. The bill, which had bipartisan support and mainly focused on expanding the agency’s function and improving infrastructure, was promulgated by President Joe Biden in May 2024.

The update adds confidentiality for people who like to accelerate the jet and take off for a long weekend in the Galapagos Islands or wherever the rich like the holidays, but it will probably put a breach in attempts to follow the activity of celebrities and CEOs as they burn in fuel with contempt for its consequences.

Theft trackers enters the audience from time to time, maybe never with more fervent attention than when Musk has suspended the Twitter account @elonjet shortly after the purchase of the platform. The account simply published the flight activity of Musk’s Jet, which seriously thwarted the billionaire. At one point, Musk offered the account operator for $ 5,000 to close it, which was rejected. The entire incident also gave us a very funny musk quote in which he said that people sharing his flight details displayed his “assassination coordinates”.

Musk is far from the only celebrity which is probably happy to see the new rules of confidentiality in place. Taylor Swift has gained significant warmth on its use of PJ, going so far as to place a cease-up to the operator of a flight tracker who recorded his trips.

Celebrities and CEOs have been more and more based on private flights in recent years, according to a study in 2024 published in Nature, which revealed that people with high net value used their jets for short flights. About half of all private flights were less than 500 km (approximately 300 miles), and private travel emissions increased by 46% between 2019 and 2023, depending on the study. Likewise, a report by The Guardian revealed that private jets belonging to 200 rich people made 44,739 trips in 2022, generating more carbon emissions than 40,000 average British citizens that do during a year.

It is surprising that they prefer not to have this information made public.