Cathay Pacific and Google Join Forces to Tackle Contrail Climate Impact

Cathay Pacific and Google are teaming up to reduce contrails, the white streaks that trail behind aircraft at high altitude. Contrails form when hot engine exhaust meets cold, humid air at cruising altitude and can spread into cloud-like formations that trap heat in the atmosphere.

Scientists estimate contrails account for roughly one-third of aviation's total climate impact, according to assessments attributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cathay Pacific and Google began an operational trial in late 2025, targeting more than 100 flights across Cathay's network.

The partnership uses AI tools to predict which sections of airspace are most likely to produce persistent contrails on a given day. Flight dispatchers cross-reference those predictions with intended flight plans and revise them as needed, sometimes through minor altitude adjustments.

The early results showed that more than 80 flights followed contrail-avoidance routing, reducing the warming impact of their contrails by roughly 40%. Cathay Pacific is Google's first commercial airline partner in the Asia-Pacific region to trial this contrail mitigation technology, and the first airline globally to test contrail avoidance specifically on ultra-long-haul flights.

The partnership reflects Cathay Pacific's interest in solutions that can be deployed with existing aircraft. Aviation needs solutions to address climate change, and AI is accelerating that progress, said Lawrence Fong, Director Digital and IT at Cathay Pacific.