Has Thales Solved the Climate Contrails Problem?

Contrails, the artificial clouds produced by aeroplanes, have been identified as a major contributor to global warming, with an impact that can rival that of CO₂ emissions. 

By trapping heat from the sun, these condensation trails play a role similar to greenhouse gases, significantly contributing to aviation's overall climate footprint.

Thales, in collaboration with airline Amelia and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Contrails, has announced the large-scale deployment of an innovative contrail avoidance solution, marking a significant step towards more sustainable aviation. 

The initiative, which has been tested on flight routes between Paris, France and Valladolid, Spain, has already demonstrated impressive results in reducing the climate impact of flights.

Yannick Assouad, Executive Vice-President for Avionics at Thales, says: “Thales’ contrail avoidance solution is a first for France. 

“It is fully aligned with Thales’ strategy aiming to transform the aerospace industry towards a more environmentally-friendly future through technology, for more sustainable and responsible aviation”.

The contrail avoidance solution has shown impressive effectiveness:

• More than 20 tonnes of CO2 equivalent avoided in 2024
• Up to 40% reduction in climate impact per flight
• Fuel consumption increase limited to under 3%.

How the contrail tech works

The solution, named Flights Footprint, integrates with Amelia's Operational Control Center (OCC) tools, allowing operations agents to obtain alternative routes that significantly reduce contrails.

The tech uses the most recent weather forecasts and climate models provided by Breakthrough Energy Contrails to recommend a flight path at a lower altitude that, ideally, does not produce contrails.

However, flying at lower altitudes often consumes more fuel. 

The solution still manages a minimum average decrease of up to 40% of a flight’s total climate impact as the reduction or avoidance of contrails has significant impact.

This solution solely changes the altitude of the flight path and not the route, helping to limit fuel consumption. 

A ground camera installed by Reuniwatt enabled the solution’s effectiveness to be validated through directly observing contrails, or a lack of them. 

Adrien Chabot, Director of Sustainable Development at Amelia, says: “Taking condensation trails into account allows for the analysis of the total climate impact of our operations and thus a better optimisation of them. 

“The challenge is to significantly and quickly reduce our impact on climate change by continuing the deployment of the Thales solution initiated in 2022. 

“Today, it is probably one of the most promising approaches in terms of cost/benefit regarding climate impact.”

The potential for this technology is not limited to Amelia’s regional flights – it has potential to work on international flight routes with bigger planes too. 

The success of Flights Footprint

Matteo Mirolo, Head of Strategy at Breakthrough Energy Contrails, says: “The impact of contrails on the climate, similar to that of CO₂, is one of the major challenges of the ecological transition in aviation. 

“We are delighted to collaborate with Thales to implement large-scale pilot avoidance campaigns, like this one done with Amelia, which are crucial when considering the eventual deployment of systematic avoidance measures.” 

Due to the tech’s impressive pilot through 2024, Amelia has decided to implement it on all eligible regional flights in 2025. 

The change in altitude does not change the level of turbulence on a flight, so passenger comfort is not impacted. 

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