Etihad Airways signs contrail management contract with UK’s SATAVIA

Etihad Airways signs contrail management contract with UK’s SATAVIA

Etihad Airways, the national carrier of UAE, has signed a ground-breaking contrail management contract with SATAVIA, a leading UK-based green aerospace firm.

The partnership will build on a previous proof-of-concept engagement to expand the scope for contrail management within day-to-day flight operations. The partnership also incorporates an agreement to collaborate on the generation of future carbon credits from contrail management activity.

The contract was signed by Etihad’s Head of Sustainability and Excellence, Ms. Mariam Al Qubaisi and SATAVIA’s CEO Dr. Adam Durant at the World Future Energy Summit (WFES) at ADNEC, Abu Dhabi. The new agreement will see Etihad scaling SATAVIA contrail prevention across daily flight schedules, accelerating the airline’s progress towards climate-neutral operations.

Aircraft-generated condensation trails, or contrails, cause surface warming responsible for up to two-thirds of aviation’s climate impact, significantly outweighing direct CO2 emissions from aircraft engines. SATAVIA’s contrail management platform, DECISIONX:NETZERO, optimizes commercial flight plans for greener operations, implementing small routing changes on a minority of flights to avoid the formation of persistent warming contrails.

Ms. Al Qubaisi said that “Our collaboration with SATAVIA illustrates the possibility of credible sustainability advances in day-to-day commercial operations. In 2022 alone, SATAVIA technology has enabled us to eliminate thousands of tons of carbon dioxide