After a massive reduction in flights over Europe during the pandemic, air travel is once again rising and with it the environmental impact, according to European aviation officials. Around 5 million planes took off and landed at airports in the 31 countries of the EU and the Free Trade Organisation EFTA in 2021, according to the 2022 report from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). This is up from 4 million flights in 2020, when the pandemic more than halved flight numbers following a high of 9 million flights in 2019, before the pandemic. Researchers now fear that air travel is on trac…