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Last week, two protestors were arrested and accused of damaging a British airfield fence, trespassing, spray painting two private planes, disrupting flights, and other charges. Climate activists with Just Stop Oil planned their airfield entry to match Taylor Swiftā€™s private jet landing. Prosecutors claim that cleaning the planes cost Ā£52,000, or about $65,942. That bill is ridiculous. Hereā€™s why.

In previous acts, Just Stop Oil repeatedly stated that the orange ā€œpaintā€ its members use is actually harmless corn flour. The group insisted that the powder rinses off with rain.

Indeed, the orange substance was quickly and easily removed with blown air from Stonehedge last week. Nick Merriman is chief executive of English Heritage. Per the BBC, ā€œThe orange powder was removed from the stones using blown air, which has helped preserve the rare lichen on the surface of the stones, Mr. Merriman confirmed.ā€

If the orange powder left ā€œrare lichenā€ unharmed, what could it do to the planes to warrant a $65,000 cleaning bill?

Airplane exterior detailing likely doesnā€™t run $30K per plane

To understand what it would take to wash the private jets, I researched publicly available airplane detailing quotes. Two sources, Detail Xperts and Circle Air Group, provide prices for washing, waxing, and polishing jet exteriors on their websites. Posted estimates range from a few hundred to $5,000, depending on the size.

The jet owned by US Bank seats 18 passengers. Detail Xperts says to expect a $1,000 fee to wash the exterior of a large business jet. The price sheet qualifies ā€œlargeā€ as something like a Gulfstream G650 that carries between 11 and 18 passengers. The page also says that commercial planes (like a Boeing 737) could run $5,000 to $10,000 to wash.

Granted, even with slightly outdated price sheets (one is three years old), I highly doubt that inflation has boosted detail jobs from a few grand to more than $30,000 each. Sure, there are probably special after-hours or on-call service fees thrown in. Otherwise, the bill presented in the Just Stop Oil activistsā€™ court hearing seems highly puffed up.

Sources: Essex Live, BBC, Nexstar

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