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Sir Sadiq Khan has flown more than 100,000 air miles since becoming London mayor, The Standard can reveal. Many of the trips have been undertaken on behalf of the C40 group of world cities that claim to be leading the fight against climate change. Sir Sadiq’s latest trip – a 12,000-mile return journey to Rio de Janiero in Brazil to attend a climate change conference – is the latest to spark accusations of hypocrisy from his critics. When he was elected chair of C40 in 2021, Sir Sadiq was hailed as the “king” of mayors and vowed to use the role to build a greener “new world”. The Rio summit is the fifth foreign trip he has made in 2025, four of which have involved plane travel, and the 24th since he was elected. Of these, 17 have involved air flights. He has also taken a return flight to Edinburgh. This year Sir Sadiq has also flown to Poland, France and to four cities in Africa, where he became the first London mayor to lead a trade delegation to the continent – running up a £83,921 bill in the process. Calculations by The Standard estimate that the amount of air miles clocked up this year by Sir Sadiq and his aides – which have numbered up to 11 at times – is almost equivalent to the distance between Earth and the moon. Since 2016, The Standard estimates that Sir Sadiq has flown a total of 104,982 miles on official business, according to information published by City Hall. He has also made a number of trips to Paris by Eurostar train. The mayor is always accompanied by a number of aides - meaning the full impact of his “carbon footprint” will be far greater. Sir Sadiq often faces criticism from opponents at City Hall but remains defiant at making efforts to “bang the drum” globally to attract visitors and investment to London. He also says he has made fewer trips abroad than Boris Johnson, his predecessor as mayor. According to City Hall records scrutinised by The Standard, the Rio trip is the 24th foreign excursion undertaken by Sir Sadiq since he was first elected in 2016. Answering questions about his foreign travel, Sir Sadiq has previously said that the Greater London Authority calculates the carbon emissions on business travel and makes an annual payment to “offset” the impact of the flights. But Sir Sadiq has not complied with recent Tory requests to list all the flights he has undertaken for mayoral purposes. Here are all the details of what we know about where he’s been, year to year – and how much it has cost Londoners – at least £167,963 according to publicly available figures. After being elected mayor for the first time in May 2016, Sir Sadiq travelled to Paris – by train – to attend Second World War anniversary events and to promote trade and investment between France and London. He was accompanied by three aides and the trip cost £1,223. In September 2016, he visited Canada and the USA, meeting the then Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in Montreal before heading for Chicago and New York. He was accompanied by seven aides and the trip cost £32,339. In January 2017, Sir Sadiq headed to the World Trade Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as he tried to prevent a “hard Brexit” in the aftermath of the UK’s EU referendum. The trip, with three aides, cost £1,687. He also travelled to Brussels and Paris by train to meet senior leaders of EU Institutions and to promote trade and investment between Belgium, France and London. He was accompanied by four aides at a cost of £5,548. He returned later in 2017 by train to Paris to promote trade and investment between France and London and attend a C40 committee meeting. Accompanied by four aides, the trip cost £1,149. In December 2017 he embarked on one of his most daring trips, to India and Pakistan, crossing the border between the two countries on foot – the first Western politician of his generation to do so. In India, he visited Mumbai, Delhi and the Golden Temple at Amritsar – like his predecessor Ken Livingstone. He was accompanied by seven aides. In Pakistan, he went to Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. The trip cost £20,984. In March 2018, the mayor headed to Austin, Texas, to speak at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. Accompanied by three aides, it cost £3,820, even with British Airways gifting the mayor a return flight. Later that year he flew to Berlin and then to Paris, where he took part in anniversary of the Bataclan terrorist attack. He and four aides returned to London by Eurostar. The trip cost £6,298. He also flew to Dublin and met the then Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar and president Michael Higgins. Three aides also travelled. The trip cost £2,083. In 2019 the mayor travelled to Poland to attend Second World War anniversary events and to promote trade and investment between Poland and London. He took three aides. The trip cost £2,286. He was back in Poland in 2020 for Auschwitz liberation anniversary events. He took three aides. The trip cost £1,331. He also travelled by Eurostar to Brussels to meet EU leaders as part of his post-Brexit campaigning. Three aides accompanied the mayor at a total cost of £1,055. Sir Sadiq’s first foreign trip as the pandemic came to an end was an epic five-day coast-to-coast tour of the US in May. It started in Times Square in New York with a bid to get US tourists back to London, before heading to San Francisco and Los Angeles – and a “fact-finding” mission about the use of recreational cannabis plus a meeting with James Corden in the Hollywood hills. Some flights were gifted by United Airlines but the trip still cost £6,377. The mayor was back on his travels in October, heading to Buenos Aires in Argentina to participate in C40 World Mayor's Summit as chair of C40. He took four aides. There was no cost to City Hall as the C40 picked up the £11,800 tab. In September 2023, the mayor returned to New York to participate in the UN Climate Ambitions Summit in his capacity as Mayor of London and chair of C40. He joined Prince William at an Earthshot prize event and surprised New Yorkers by walking between meetings. Five aides joined the mayor on the trip, which cost City Hall £750 as the bulk of the cost (£14,626) was paid by C40. In May 2024, Sir Sadiq was back on C40 duty with a visit to the Vatican and meeting with Pope Francis. The mayor presented the Holy Father with a book of London tea. He was accompanied by four aides and the trip cost £4,301. In July, he and six aides took the Eurostar train to Paris, at a total cost of £4,901, for the rain-drenched opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics. In September, he returned to New York for the third successive year – making it four trips to the Big Apple. Again, the £14,626 bill was picked up by the C40. The mayor travelled business class. The purpose of the trip, on which he was joined by eight aides, was to participate in events in New York that were happening alongside the United Nations General Assembly. In October, Sir Sadiq flew to Edinburgh, clocking up an additional 660 air miles at a cost of £515 rather than taking a LNER or Lumo train from King’s Cross. Sir Sadiq made his third mayoral visit to Poland in January 2025 to attend the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. He took four aides. The cost was £1,271. In March, he made his first trip to the Mipim property conference in Cannes – previously a favourite of Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson. The purpose was to launch the Opportunity London prospectus seeking a record level £22bn of investment to build more affordable homes for Londoners and unlock new infrastructure and jobs in the capital. Nine aides accompanied the mayor. His £713 travel costs – a return flight to Nice – were paid by Opportunity London, while his delegate pass, costing £1,896, was donated by RX Global. In June, Sir Sadiq was back in Paris to speak at a world leaders summit marking the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement 10th anniversary. The £163 travel bill – he is thought to have travelled by train - was covered by the City of Paris. In July, Sir Sadiq became the first London mayor to lead a trade delegation of 25 London-based companies to Africa. Between July 14-19 he visited four cities – Lagos in Nigeria, Accra in Ghana, and Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa. He was joined by 10 aides in Nigeria and Ghana and 11 in South Africa, where his engagements included a meeting with Nelson Mandela’s daughter, Dr Makaziwe Mandela. City Hall recently revealed the Africa trip cost the London taxpayer a total of £83,921, including £68,330 on flights and £11,418 on accommodation. The cost of this week’s trip to Rio is currently unknown but is expected to be covered by the C40. Sir Sadiq has been accompanied by Mete Coban, his deputy mayor for the environment, who previously pledged to limit his own carbon footprint after clocking up 40,000 air miles, and an unknown number of other aides. At Mayor’s Question Time in June, Susan Hall, leader of the City Hall Conservatives, asked Sir Sadiq to list each flight he had taken for mayoral purposes since 2016. Sir Sadiq declined to provide details but said: “I have been working tirelessly to facilitate trade and investment deals and help maintain London’s reputation as a world-leading city, creating jobs and prosperity in London and across the UK. This includes through my international visits programme.” Ms Hall replied: “The answer is you have gone on hundreds and thousands of miles worth of air transport, when you tell everybody else that they should not be doing this because of being net zero and being very green.” But in September, Sir Sadiq provided additional information, stating: “Since I became Mayor more than 9 years ago, I have been on 23 international visits - 16 by plane - and I have always been transparent about my international visits.” Neil Garratt, a Tory member of the London Assembly, said: "Khan's winter sun holiday to Rio smacks of desperation. A jet-set lecture on climate change while he quietly abandons his net zero commitments. "In the run up to the budget the Mayor should be in London lobbying for our city, not flying around the globe to tell us how bad aviation fuel is for the environment. He's clearly given up, and Londoners are beginning to notice." The mayor’s press office has been approached for comment.
