It would be easy to assume that commercial aviation fuel consumption is its biggest impact on the environment. For example, a Boeing 737-800 burns about 5,000 pounds of fuel per hour in the sky. However, research shows that persistent streaks play a much larger role. An eight-year study found that sunspots generated 57% of the industry’s contribution to the climate crisis.
Contrails are fragile clouds created by jet engine exhaust. The steam condenses into ice crystals around the particles that are blown out behind the turbine. Most of the time, the blur disappears within a few minutes. Ten percent of the time, the streaks remain intact. These persistent streaks trap heat in the atmosphere that would otherwise radiate into space, contributing directly to the rise in global temperatures.
Last year, Etihad Airlines became the first passenger airline to use tracking software as part of its Greenliner sustainability pilot program. Satavia, the software developer, was originally founded to increase the life of jet turbine engines by routing to avoid particles in the sky, such as volcanic ash. Even so, the company recognizes that its efforts can have a cost-effective impact on the environment for increasingly climate-conscious airlines.
The founder of Satavia, Adam Durant, told CNN:
“Airlines keep planning flights as usual. But in parallel, we analyze their schedules and look at several flow trajectories for each flight. We end up with a long list of flights where the top 5% or equivalent have these long, heavy warming streaks. And then we work closely with flight operations within the airline to target those audiences.”
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Only a few routes would have to be adjusted to eliminate nearly all contrails. Satavia hopes to scale up its operations and is slated to begin another test with KLM. Other groups have realized the potential impact of eliminating contrails. Delta and MIT is collaborating on an open source routing algorithm to minimize streaking.
