Last month’s launch of Operation Blue Skies captured the imagination. It’s a compelling opportunity; an ATI Programme project to deliver the world’s first oceanic airspace-scale trial in contrail avoidance.
The forthcoming trials, due to start later this year, follow decades of scientific research into aviation’s non-CO2 impacts by world-leading academics. Operation Blue Skies combines that research with AI-enabled satellite analysis, weather forecasting and air traffic control expertise. Its success will depend on collaboration across each of these disciplines.
The project grew from a simple question: how could the right organisations be brought together to model, forecast, manoeuvre and measure contrail avoidance in real time? The UK-based consortium of Google, the Met Office, NATS, Contrails.org, Imperial College London and University of Cambridge brings this expertise together to evaluate the operational feasibility and environmental benefits of adjusting North Atlantic commercial flight altitudes to minimise persistent, warming contrails.
This journey from concept to funded project was shaped by several strands of work coming together: a stronger scientific evidence base, growing operational confidence, and a shared view that contrail avoidance needed to be tested at meaningful scale.
The ATI’s first-of-its-kind Non-CO2 Technologies Roadmap, published in March 2024, set out the aerospace sector’s collective ambition to improve understanding of non-CO2 aircraft emissions and the technology advancements needed to address their climate impact.
The roadmap became the foundation and mechanism for the project to progress through the ATI Programme, but the original vision lies somewhere over the Atlantic. The Aviation Impact Accelerator (AIA) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a series of Transatlantic Workshops with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and the Whittle Laboratory. Drawing on deep domain knowledge from both sides of the Atlantic, academics and government officials agreed to pursue a transatlantic contrail avoidance trial as a priority.
As key stakeholders aligned behind a vision of UK leadership in this space, the Jet Zero Taskforce established Task and Finish Groups on Contrail Impact Mitigation (CIM). These groups reviewed contrail avoidance work internationally and outlined a pathway for implementing an ambitious project in the UK.
Operation Blue Skies demonstrates the UK’s ability to bring together government, industry and academia to tackle aviation’s most complex sustainability challenges. Building on the ATI’s non-CO2 roadmap, the project will explore contrail avoidance alongside decarbonisation measures such as ultra-efficient and zero-carbon emission aircraft technologies and sustainable aviation fuels.
The project is co-funded by its industry partners and the Department for Transport (DfT) through the ATI Programme with 100% of the government grant funding being allocated to academic, non-profit, and aviation partners. Google UK is participating on a pro-bono basis, contributing £1.4 million in-kind.
Discover all four roadmaps in the national aerospace technology strategy Engineering Growth.
The ATI Programme is a partnership between the ATI, the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) and Innovate UK.
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