Enhancing environmental sustainability in aviation: an implementation of contrail mitigation strategies in commercial flight dispatching

Aviation condensation trails, also known as contrails, have a significant impact on anthropogenic climate change. One promising solution to mitigate this impact is eco-efficient flight planning that avoids contrail-prone regions with only minimal deviations in aircraft trajectories. There exist several contrail prediction models aimed at identifying these sensitive regions. Previous studies have evaluated these models in laboratory simulations, forecasting contrail probability areas and re-routing flights to circumvent them. This study advances the simulation one step further by using the real commercial flight dispatch optimization algorithm FLIGHTKEYS 5D, developed by the aviation software company Flightkeys GmbH, in combination with the contrail cirrus prediction model (CoCip), to evaluate the impact of contrails over two full operational days of a commercial airline. The results of this research provide strong evidence for the feasibility of integrating contrail mitigation techniques into commercial flight planning tools. The analysis of deviations in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions shows that a significant, even complete reduction in contrail energy forcing can be achieved with only a minimal increase in cost and fuel consumption. The study underscores the need for the aviation industry to incorporate contrail mitigation strategies into its standard operating procedures to prioritize environmental sustainability and gather valuable data and insights for eco-friendly flight planning.