Gone are the days of old-school tour buses and living on the road. Now, pop stars like Taylor Swift are likely to fly straight home after a concert.
Swift and her two private jets have spent the last several months crisscrossing the US throughout the first leg of her colossal Eras Tour.
The singer has two multi-million dollar planes: a Dassault Falcon 7X, registered N621MM under Island Jet Inc, and a Dassault Falcon 900, registered N898TS under SATA LLC. Both companies are registered to the same address as Taylor Swift Productions in Nashville, according to Tennessee Secretary of State documents.
The Dassault 900 jet can carry up to 12 passengers and requires a two-person crew. The Dassault 7X has a slightly larger cabin, carrying up to 16 passengers, and is designed for longer flights.
Swift appears to have bought both aircraft several years ago. The planes were registered to her holding companies in 2009 and 2018, respectively, according to FAA data. Today, a new Dassault 7X is estimated to cost about $54 million, while a new Dassault 900 has a list price of $44 million, according to Business Jet Traveler.
A Dassault Falcon 900 can include a converted bed, like this one, which isn’t Taylor Swift’s jet. Courtesy of Dassault Aviation.
JetSpy aggregates its flight information using ADS-B data that is transmitted from several vendors and networks. ADS-B is a public surveillance technology that broadcasts information like GPS location and altitude from one aircraft to another and to ground stations. The technology made headlines last year when it was used to broadcast Elon Musk’s flight data on social media.
Here’s a closer look at the flight activity of Swift’s jets during the first five months of her Eras tour.
A Flourish map
Swift’s jets have taken 103 flights this year
Swift’s jets have taken a combined 103 flights so far this year — 86 of which have taken place since massive Eras tour kicked off in March.
A spokesperson for Swift told Insider the singer has worked to offset her jets’ carbon emissions.
“Before the tour kicked off in March of 2023, Taylor purchased more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel,” the spokesperson said. Insider was not able to independently verify this.
In 2023, carbon credits cost between $40 to $80 per metric ton of CO2, according to Terrapass, a company that provides carbon offsetting products. Earlier this year, The Washington Post reported that some experts believe the majority of carbon credit programs overestimate their emission reductions.
There is no way of knowing the jets’ passengers for any of the flights. Both jets appear to have primarily followed locations along the singer’s tour route, which kicked off in Glendale, Arizona, on March 17.
Taylor Swift’s Eras tour is now the highest-grossing of all time. She kicked off in Glendale, Arizona. John Shearer/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
The average flight during the tour has been just under two hours. The shortest flight was an eight-minute hop from a small airport in Van Nuys, California, to Burbank, California, on March 26. (This could have been a pilot repositioning the plane.)
The longest flight was on July 2, when Swift’s Dassault 7X jet flew from Groton New London Airport in Connecticut to Bob Hope Airport in Burbank.
The roughly 5-hour flight appeared to be part of a return trip from an airport near one of Swift’s houses in Rhode Island.
Swift’s jets often made red-eye flights out of concert locations
On multiple occasions, both of Swift’s jets made duplicate flights in one day or flew from different locations to the same destination. Swift’s Dassault 900 jet typically flew to concerts from her adopted hometown of Nashville, Tennessee — and would head back after the show.
The singer has homes in cities including Nashville, New York, and Beverly Hills, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Throughout the tour, Swift’s N898TS jet often departed from tour locations late at night — typically taking off between the hours of 11 p.m. to midnight and landing in Nashville as early as 4:38 a.m. the next day. Most of the late-night flights landed between the hours of midnight and 1:30. a.m.
The second jet — N621MM — mostly followed N898TS, though it also took detours to places like Burbank; Tampa, Florida; and a New Jersey airport located about an hour’s drive outside of New York City. Meanwhile, N898TS rarely deviated from the tour schedule.
Swift’s tour is far from over
A Dassault 900 jet like one that Taylor Swift uses to jet to Era tour dates. Ryan Fletcher / Shutterstock.com
While the first leg of Swift’s marathon Eras tour is complete, her days of jet-setting are far from over. The singer has already started touring in Mexico and one of her jets has already made a red-eye flight from Mexico City to Nashville, according to JetSpy data. She will also bring Eras to Canada, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. More recently, Swift announced she would return to the US for another leg of the tour later next year.
Swift is one of the world’s highest-paid artists and her tour is set to bring in over $1 billion in sales — making it the highest-grossing tour of all time, according to concert data tracker Pollstar.
While the lengthy tour may excite fans, her jet usage could ignite some criticism.
Last year, data from digital marketing firm Yard found the singer’s Dassault 7X private jet emitted over 8,293 metric tons of CO2 in 2022 — or nearly 1,200 times the average person’s total yearly emissions, according to the study.
At the time, Swift’s spokesperson said that she regularly lent the jets out.
“To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect,” the spokesperson told E! News.
It appears Swift has cut back on flights this year. According to the data from JetSpy, her two planes took a combined 138 flights between January 2022 and August 2022, when she wasn’t on tour. That compares to the 103 total flights as of August 29 this year.
