Operation Blue Skies: Reducing aviation climate impact with AI

A landmark consortium for global impact

Achieving airspace-scale contrail avoidance requires close collaboration across science, technology, and air traffic management. Operation Blue Skies brings together a world-leading UK consortium with the expertise to turn cutting-edge research into operational reality:

• Google UK: Developing AI models to predict and avoid warming contrails, while using machine learning and satellite imaging to track and verify our impact.
• NATS (the UK's leading air navigation service provider): Trial airspace operations, air traffic control coordination, safety assessment and air traffic controller training.
• Contrails.org: Leading forecast assessments, designing trial parameters, and supporting data analysis.
• Imperial College London & University of Cambridge: Evaluating trial outcomes and providing independent verification of climate impact.
• Met Office: Developing a new UK contrail forecast capability and ensuring meteorological accuracy throughout the trial.

Operation Blue Skies programme is co-funded by its industry partners and the Department for Transport (DfT) through the ATI Programme, a partnership between the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) and Innovate UK. To ensure public funding directly advances sovereign scientific capabilities, 100% of the government grant funding is allocated directly to academic, non-profit, and aviation partners.

Google UK is participating on a pro-bono basis, contributing £1.4 million in-kind through AI research expertise, engineering time, and high-performance computing infrastructure to advance open climate science.

A blueprint for the future of flight

Contrails are one of the most urgent yet solvable climate challenges facing aviation today. Research suggests that avoiding contrails could be one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce aviation's climate impact. ² Addressing this challenge requires new approaches that combine scientific insight, advanced technology, and operational innovation. Operation Blue Skies aims to demonstrate that solving the challenge of contrails is operationally practical, providing a validated blueprint for how our airspaces can be managed to drastically reduce aviation's climate impact.

If you're part of the aviation industry and interested in advancing contrail mitigation through collaboration or participation, we'd love to hear from you. Please contact our team to learn more about opportunities to get involved.