Overview
- The consortium publicly announced the programme on Tuesday, August 18, 2026, starting a 30‑month pilot called Operation Blue Skies with about £5 million of funding.
- Google is supplying AI models and roughly £1.4 million of compute in kind, and the company says the warming prevented should more than offset the CO2 from the AI compute used.
- NATS will issue any altitude corrections only when they are judged absolutely safe, and the trial will focus on the Shanwick eastern North Atlantic corridor with two four‑month winter test phases beginning in winter 2026/27.
- Researchers will verify results by comparing post‑flight satellite imagery and independent analyses from institutions such as Imperial College and Cambridge to see if persistent contrails were avoided.
- Contrails form when hot, particle‑laden exhaust hits very cold, humid air and can act like a thin cloud that traps heat, so small altitude shifts of a few hundred metres can often prevent them but may add fuel use and require careful operational and governance review.