Artificial intelligence is already being shoved into just about everything, but Google has found a use for the technology that could actually make a measurable difference. The company is working with the UK government and several aviation organizations on a project that will use AI to help airplanes avoid creating climate-warming contrails over the North Atlantic.
The effort is called Operation Blue Skies, and Google describes it as the world’s first state-backed trial of contrail avoidance across an entire oceanic airspace. Rather than focusing on a handful of flights from a single airline, the project will coordinate contrail mitigation across part of the North Atlantic.
Those white lines behind airplanes might look harmless, but Google says warming contrails account for roughly one-third of aviation’s total climate impact. They can form when water vapor condenses around soot particles in jet exhaust, creating clouds that can trap heat in the atmosphere.
Google has previously tested AI-powered contrail forecasts with organizations including American Airlines, EUROCONTROL’s Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre, and flight-planning software provider FlightKeys. The idea is relatively straightforward. AI models predict areas where warming contrails are likely to form, allowing pilots and air traffic controllers to make targeted adjustments to avoid those regions.
Operation Blue Skies takes that concept considerably further. The 30-month program will operate within the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor known as Shanwick airspace. According to Google, this region accounts for approximately 5 percent of global contrail warming.
Two operational trials are planned, with each lasting approximately four months. Around 10,000 flights originating from hundreds of cities are expected to pass through Shanwick airspace during trial hours each year. Only a small percentage of those flights are expected to require adjustments.
For affected aircraft, the plan isn’t to send them on dramatically different routes. Instead, flights that would otherwise pass through areas particularly susceptible to producing warming contrails could be slightly deviated. The goal is to prevent the most problematic contrails while keeping the aircraft within normal flight operations.
Google UK is developing the AI models used to predict warming contrails. The company will also use machine learning and satellite imagery to determine whether the system is actually producing the intended results.
Google isn’t working alone. UK air navigation provider NATS will handle air traffic operations, coordination, safety assessments, and controller training. Contrails.org will work on forecast assessments, trial parameters, and data analysis, while researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge will independently evaluate the results. The UK’s Met Office is also developing a contrail forecasting capability for the project.
The program is being co-funded by industry participants and the UK Department for Transport through the ATI Programme. Google says all government grant funding is going directly to academic, nonprofit, and aviation organizations involved in the project.
Google UK, meanwhile, says it is participating on a pro-bono basis. The company is contributing £1.4 million worth of AI research, engineering work, and high-performance computing infrastructure.
Of course, deliberately changing an airplane’s route raises an obvious question. If avoiding a contrail requires flying farther and burning additional fuel, does the climate benefit still outweigh the additional emissions?
That tradeoff will be important to watch as Operation Blue Skies progresses. Slight deviations sound reasonable on paper, particularly if they can prevent strongly warming contrails, but real-world data from thousands of flights should provide a much better indication of whether the approach makes sense at scale.
If the numbers work, this could turn out to be one of the more practical applications of AI in aviation. Instead of requiring entirely new aircraft or waiting decades for new propulsion technologies, airlines could potentially reduce some of their climate impact simply by changing where certain airplanes fly at certain times.
And unlike plenty of AI promises being made these days, Operation Blue Skies should eventually produce data that tells us whether the technology actually works.
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