Ferry vs. helicopter.

In Es Vivé this morning a man in a linen shirt told the receptionist he was “just popping over” to Formentera for lunch. He meant by helicopter. He was holding a small dog.

The Ibiza-to-Formentera helicopter is a real thing. It runs out of Ibiza Airport in the south, lands at the small heliport near La Savina, takes around twelve minutes in the air, and costs in the region of €250–€300 per person for a single seat one-way. The operator pages list seasonal rates and group discounts. We’ve included the public ones in the sources at the end. If you book a return same-day it’s a bit cheaper per leg, but the floor is around €450 per person.

The ferry is also a real thing. Here is what the ferry is:

* The asterisk on transfer time: the helicopter saves twelve minutes in the air but the heliport is near the airport, not the marina, and security takes a few minutes. The ferry leaves from Eivissa town, which is closer to most places you’d be staying.

What the carbon number actually means

Helicopter fuel burn for a light commercial helicopter (the kind used on this route) is in the order of 100–150 kg of jet-A per hour. At four passengers, the per-passenger carbon for a twelve-minute hop is in the 50–80 kg range. The ferry is harder to estimate cleanly because the fast catamarans burn diesel and the passenger count varies by sailing — but the per-passenger figure falls in the 3–5 kg range under typical summer loadings. Both numbers are estimates; we’ve linked the sources we used to triangulate them.

The cleanest way to think about this is the ratio. The helicopter costs roughly fifteen-to-twenty times more carbon per passenger than the ferry, for a crossing where you save twelve minutes of air time and lose forty-five minutes of being out on the Mediterranean.

How to take the ferry, specifically

Two operators run the Eivissa–La Savina route year-round: Trasmapi and Balearia. Both have apps and counter sales at Estación Marítima. Buy at the counter if you want flexibility (no change fees); buy in the app if you know your time. The fast ferries (around twenty-five minutes) are slightly more expensive than the regular ones (around thirty-five minutes). In July and August the 11:00 and 18:00 sailings fill up; the rest of the day you can usually walk on.

Bring a hat. The upper deck is the point.

Are we above this?

No. If we needed to get someone to a doctor on Formentera fast we would take the helicopter. If a friend offered us a free seat on a charter we might say yes and then post about it like everyone else. The point of the shirt is not that helicopters are evil; the point is that “just popping over” is doing a lot of heavy lifting for a choice that costs around thirty times the money and roughly twenty times the carbon for ten minutes saved. We just want the trade-off to be visible.

Sources

• Trasmapi public timetable and fares: trasmapi.com
• Balearia public timetable and fares: balearia.com
• Helicopter operator pricing: aggregated from publicly listed charter rates by IbizaJet, Hely, and Sansair (operator pages update seasonally; figures above are summer 2025 ranges)
• Helicopter fuel-burn and CO₂ estimation: ICCT (International Council on Clean Transportation) general aviation reports; EUROCONTROL Specifications for Trajectory-Based Operations
• Catamaran ferry emissions estimation: ICCT short-distance passenger ferry studies; Trasmapi fleet data

Numbers refreshed when operator prices change in May 2026. If you spot a stale figure, write to desk@ibz.wtfand we’ll fix it.