Google, in collaboration with the UK government and aviation-sector leaders, has announced the launch of Operation Blue Skies, a state-supported trial using artificial intelligence to avoid contrails produced by aircraft over the eastern part of the North Atlantic corridor. According to Google, this is the first trial of its kind to apply contrail avoidance across an entire oceanic airspace.
These clouds form when water vapor condenses around soot particles in jet-engine exhaust. Despite their wispy appearance, Google says warming contrails account for about one-third of aviation’s total climate impact, making their reduction a practical way to lower the sector’s indirect climate emissions.
A Trial on the Shanwick Corridor
The program will take place in Shanwick airspace in the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor, an area Google says is associated with about 5% of global warming caused by contrails. The program will run for 30 months and include two operational trials, each lasting about four months.
During the trial periods, about 10,000 flights a year from hundreds of cities will pass through Shanwick airspace. Not all flights will be rerouted; only a limited number of flights expected to cross areas sensitive to contrail formation will be diverted, with the adjustments kept within normal flight operations.
From Prediction to Operational Application
The plan relies on artificial-intelligence models that predict areas where strongly warming contrails are likely to form, together with satellite imagery and machine-learning techniques to track and verify their effects. Google says previous trials with airlines such as American Airlines, air navigation service provider EUROCONTROL's MUAC, and flight-planning software provider FlightKeys demonstrated that these predictions could be used to make targeted route adjustments without departing from normal aviation operations.
A British Alliance to Verify the Results
The alliance includes Google UK, which is developing the prediction models and contributing research, engineering, and high-performance computing infrastructure expertise; the UK air navigation service provider NATS, responsible for airspace operations, coordination with air traffic control, safety assessment, and controller training; and Contrails.org, which is participating in evaluating the predictions, designing the trial criteria, and analyzing the data.
Imperial College London and University of Cambridge will evaluate the trial’s results and provide independent verification of its climate impact, while the Met Office is developing a new UK capability for contrail prediction and supporting aviation accuracy during the trial.
What Changes in Practice?
The project moves contrail management from trials involving individual flights or airlines to coordination across an entire air corridor. The announcement does not promise to eliminate contrails from every flight, but rather to test airlines’ and air-traffic controllers’ ability to identify the flights with the greatest impact, make limited diversions for them, and then measure the outcome independently.
The program is funded by its industry partners and the UK Department for Transport through the ATI program, in a partnership that includes the Aerospace Technology Institute, the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, and Innovate UK. Google says all government grant funding goes directly to academic, nonprofit, and aviation-sector partners, while Google UK is contributing voluntarily the equivalent of £1.4 million in expertise, engineering time, and computing infrastructure.