Cathay Pacific Flies High on AI-Powered Contrail Reduction

Cathay Pacific and Google have joined forces to reduce the climate impact of air travel. The partnership aims to use AI to mitigate contrails, which account for one-third of aviation's total climate impact due to their warming effect.

The collaboration will assess the operational feasibility and potential climate benefits of contrail avoidance across Cathay Pacific's network. The airline has agreed to test contrail-avoidance routes on ultra-long-haul flights, starting with a trial that began in late 2025.

Google's contrail mitigation solution combines AI-based predictive models with satellite imagery detection tools and weather data to forecast the locations of contrail-forming zones. In an operational trial involving around 80 Cathay Pacific flights, Google estimates that using contrail-avoidance routes achieved a 40 per cent reduction in the warming impact of contrails.

Cathay Pacific's director of digital and IT, Lawrence Fong, stated: 'Aviation needs solutions to address climate change, and AI is accelerating that progress.' This partnership combines Cathay's operational expertise with Google's world-class AI capabilities to tackle complex sustainability challenges at scale.