Google, Cathay Pacific use AI to tackle aviation’s top climate headache

Alphabet's Google and Cathay Pacific Airways have harnessed artificial intelligence to address one of aviation's most visible yet least tackled climate issues: the warming impact of contrails. Contrails, those white plumes that trail high-altitude aircraft, are formed by frozen water vapour attached to engine exhaust particles. Though they mar the sky and fuel conspiracy theories, their main environmental risk lies in their ability to trap heat, akin to natural cirrus clouds.

Contrails are responsible for about one-third of aviation's total climate impact, according to Google. However, early-stage operational trials conducted in late 2025 on several dozen Cathay Pacific routes using Google's AI algorithms have shown promising results. The pilot project managed to reduce the warming effect of contrails by 40% by prompting pilots to steer clear of atmospheric 'sweet spots' where contrails tend to form.

Google's solution, offered free of charge, combines predictive AI models, satellite imagery and weather data to identify contrail-conducive zones, transforming this information into operational data that helps flight planners and crews adjust altitudes accordingly. This technology, currently in use with Cathay Pacific, marks Google's first partnership with an Asia-Pacific airline to test AI-powered contrail mitigation on ultra-long-haul flights.

Cathay Pacific's director of digital and information technology, Lawrence Wong, emphasized the partnership's potential, highlighting how data, AI and innovation can be applied to solve real-world challenges at scale. For airlines seeking to reduce their climate impact, this research opens up a new frontier that goes beyond improvements in aircraft efficiency and sustainable fuel experimentation.

Kemal Armada, Google's contrail research lead project manager, noted that the technology is extremely low-cost and effective. However, wider-scale implementation faces challenges such as regulatory requirements, airspace restrictions, and airlines' cost-focused and safety-focused operational considerations. An upcoming phase of the trial will expand across Cathay Pacific's intra-Asia, transpacific and polar networks to gather a larger operational data set and better understand the effectiveness of contrail avoidance on ultra-long-haul flights.