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Lam Ka-sing

Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways and Google are expanding AI-powered flight trials designed to steer aircraft away from contrail-forming zones in the Asia-Pacific region, using the data to inform broader sustainability decisions.
Condensation trails, or contrails, formed when aircraft flew through cold, humid patches of air, trapping atmospheric heat and accounting for roughly one-third of aviation’s climate impact, Kemal Armada, product manager for climate and AI at Google, said on Monday.
He said the second phase of trials would include non-governmental organisation Contrails.org as a partner. A randomised controlled trial on ultra-long-haul flights across Asia and transpacific routes would be conducted.
“With this, we are going to expand our partnership into its new phase, where we are going to do a much larger trial that is going to include ultra-long-haul flights,” Armada said.
Cathay became the first commercial airline in the Asia-Pacific region to test the technology in live operations and the first globally to test contrail avoidance on ultra-long-haul routes, said Michael Yue, managing director and general manager at Google Hong Kong.
“It gives us a great opportunity to use predictive AI and to find cost-effective, scalable ways to mitigate the impact of contrails on the overall climate impact,” Yue said.

Cathay said AI deployment would complement other initiatives such as fleet modernisation, operational efficiency improvements and the use of sustainable aviation fuel to cut emissions.
Tony Pringle, line operations manager and an Airbus captain at Cathay Pacific, said operational flight plans to avoid contrail-forming conditions were delivered directly to pilots through an iPad application, with data updated every hour during flight.
“It’s completely scalable within our operation at this point,” Pringle said.
Grace Cheung, general manager of sustainability at Cathay Pacific, said coordination among international policymakers was important in shared airspace because contrails would still form if aircraft from other airlines flew through the same atmospheric zones.
“So, really, international coordination of the policymaker with the rise of technology, data availability to really move forward together is very important,” Cheung said.
AI models would be used to address broader climate problems beyond contrail mitigation, said Lawrence Fong, director of digital and information technology at Cathay Pacific.
“So this is just a start, just a beginning,” Fong said.
Pascal Siu, senior research manager and head of green and sustainability research at think tank Our Hong Kong Foundation, said that while avoiding contrails did not reduce carbon emissions, it prevented the formation of heat-trapping clouds and cost far less than sustainable aviation fuel in terms of climate benefit per dollar.
“[Sustainable aviation fuel] cuts the actual carbon coming out of the engine – that’s the long-term fix and there’s no way around it,” Siu said.
However, sustainable aviation fuel currently accounted for only about 0.3 per cent of global jet fuel, Siu noted.
“So the answer is that contrail avoidance is a cheap, immediate add-on you can do with today’s aircraft, not a substitute for [sustainable aviation fuel],” Siu said.
The potential of contrail avoidance was substantial because condensation trails represented the single largest non-carbon dioxide warming effect caused by flying, Siu added.
“Because only a small share of flights hit the right cold, humid conditions, adjusting the altitude of a small number of flights could remove a significant amount of that warming, at an extra fuel cost of only about 0.2 per cent to 0.3 per cent across the whole fleet,” Siu said.


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Second-phase trials with Contrails.org will target ultra-long-haul Asia and transpacific routes, building on early tests that reduced contrail warming impact by about 40 per cent


Second-phase trials with Contrails.org will target ultra-long-haul Asia and transpacific routes, building on early tests that reduced contrail warming impact by about 40 per cent.
