# Google and UK Launch First AI Trial to Reroute Planes Around Climate-Warming Contrails

> Contrails, the wispy lines aircraft leave behind, do more than streak the sky. When they persist and spread, they trap heat, and by some estimates account for a meaningful share of aviation's climate impact. A new UK trial called Operation Blue Skies is the first state-backed effort to do something about that at the scale of an entire ocean. Using AI to forecast where persistent contrails are likely to form, air traffic controllers over the North Atlantic will nudge participating flights up or down by around 2,000 feet to steer them out of those zones. The 30-month program, backed by roughly 5 million pounds and partners including Google, NATS, Imperial College, Cambridge and the Met Office, will cover about 10,000 flights a year with 20 to 40 test days each winter. Early estimates suggest 60 to 70 percent of warming contrails could be avoided while adding less than 1 percent to fuel burn. It is a rare example of climate-focused AI aimed at a problem most travelers have never heard of, and if the numbers hold, a cheap lever on a stubborn source of warming.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: Google Research Blog · Published Wednesday, August 19, 2026_

## Wortins' read

Contrails, the wispy lines aircraft leave behind, do more than streak the sky. When they persist and spread, they trap heat, and by some estimates account for a meaningful share of aviation's climate impact. A new UK trial called Operation Blue Skies is the first state-backed effort to do something about that at the scale of an entire ocean. Using AI to forecast where persistent contrails are likely to form, air traffic controllers over the North Atlantic will nudge participating flights up or down by around 2,000 feet to steer them out of those zones. The 30-month program, backed by roughly 5 million pounds and partners including Google, NATS, Imperial College, Cambridge and the Met Office, will cover about 10,000 flights a year with 20 to 40 test days each winter. Early estimates suggest 60 to 70 percent of warming contrails could be avoided while adding less than 1 percent to fuel burn. It is a rare example of climate-focused AI aimed at a problem most travelers have never heard of, and if the numbers hold, a cheap lever on a stubborn source of warming.

## Source

[Read the full story at Google Research Blog](https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/google-research/blue-skies/)

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