American Airlines Uses Google AI to Map Out Environmentally Friendly Flight Paths

Google is using AI to help pilots route their flights on more environmentally conscious paths.

Google Research joined forces with American Airlines and Breakthrough Energy to see if they could use AI to create flight paths that produced fewer contrails, the thin white lines you often see behind planes. A 2022 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that they account for around 35% of aviation’s total global warming impact, or more than half the impact jet fuel has on the environment across the entire world.

Contrails are created when airplanes fly through humidity and can stick around for minutes or even hours after a plane has moved on. Over a six-month period, a group of pilots from American Airlines tested Google’s AI-based predictions cross-referenced with Breakthrough Energy’s open-source contrail models over 70 different flights, attempting to avoid altitudes where contrails might be created.

The early results of the test, announced today, are fairly promising. 

“After these test flights, we analyzed satellite imagery and found that the pilots were able to reduce contrails by 54%,” Google researchers said. “This is the first proof point that commercial flights can verifiably avoid contrails and thereby reduce their climate impact.”

The story also found that flights that avoided contrails burned 2% more jet fuel on their journey. Since a small amount of flights would in theory need to be adjusted, “this suggests that contrails could be avoided at scale for around $5-25/ton CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) using our existing predictions, making it a cost-effective warming-reduction measure, and further improvements are expected,” Google says.

“Avoiding contrails might be one of the best ways to limit aviation’s climate impact, and now we have a clear demonstration that it’s possible to do so,” Marc Shapiro, Director of Breakthrough Energy Contrails, said in a statement. “This study is a great example of what happens when creative, ambitious organizations work together to better understand and solve a tough problem, and we’re grateful for American’s and Google’s partnership.”