Being Kim Kardashian means having the best Birkins, a billion-dollar business, and a $150 million toy in the sky, Kim Air, the Gulfstream G650ER. It also means putting this mean machine to unnecessary use, as recently shown. The Skims mogul allegedly took a 10-minute flight at the end of 2025, which, as expected, sent shockwaves through the internet and made climate advocates fume. CelebrityJets tagged Kim Kardashian’s jet landing in Los Angeles, California, with an approximate flight time of 10 minutes, a trip that could easily have been a very comfortable car ride in her beloved Tesla Cybertruck, the one she has proudly posed in front of. Those 10 minutes of convenience translate economically and environmentally into something far more significant.
To break it down, this flight used 87 gallons, or a whopping 328 liters, of jet fuel. The cost was barely $500, which means almost nothing to a billionaire worth about $1.9 billion; for someone with $50,000, spending $500 would be the equivalent of shelling out a measly 1.5 cents. The real damage is environmental. Even at just 10 minutes, the output was 0.9146 tons of CO₂ emissions. That one 10-minute hop equals about 2,200 to 2,300 miles of driving in a typical gasoline car. It also equals roughly 20 percent of the average American car’s entire year of driving.
When put into perspective, the rich-girl behavior understandably invites backlash, especially because the jet in question is an ultra-long-range aircraft, capable of flying roughly 7,500 nautical miles nonstop, from L.A. to Sydney or New York to Hong Kong. For distances of a few miles, there are things called cars or, in Kardashian’s case, supercars. Taking her 2011 Gulfstream for a spin is something the mother of four has repeatedly done. While that is the very purpose of buying a jet, these 10-minute flights are truly avoidable. In 2022, trackers documented a 10-minute repositioning hop to Camarillo, along with repeated short flights. In 2023, Kim Air reportedly pumped out 3,430.5 tons of CO₂ from 142 flights.
She clearly loves her private jet, her haven in cashmere, complete with a checklist that strictly bans spray tan and makeup. It is her labor of love, where she ripped out the dark-wood and dark-leather standard G650 styling and replaced it with all-light wood and pale upholstery. There are two bathrooms on board and, for the sake of comfort and constant phone usage, each seat has its own phone charger and personal comforts.
Now we know why Kim’s G650ER is not just making transatlantic dashes but also clocking multiple sub-30-minute hops. According to Reddit users, this particular flight may have been a routine repositioning flight. Still, the environmental impact remains the same. Whether it was a routine repositioning hop or a rich flex, the planet still pays for ten minutes of convenience.
