Google is working with the European Union Aviation
Safety Agency (EASA) to create a framework for estimating flight emissions so
passengers can have reliable and easily understood information to compare flights
from different airlines.
Lufthansa Group is the pilot partner in this
initiative and will provide an extensive set of flight data from specific
flights that can be used to improve estimates for future flights on the same
routes.
For the past few years EASA has been working on an environmental
labeling scheme for aviation, with three labels in development: flight label,
airline label and aircraft label. The agency said it surveyed 9,500 people from
18 European countries between 2019 and 2020, and 80% indicated they would like
to get environmental information for the flights they take.
Subscribe to our newsletter below
For Google, the partnership gives it access to
operational data from airlines, such as fuel usage, which can be used to refine
its Travel Impact Model (TIM) for flight emissions.
Google’s TIM is built on the Travalyst Aviation
Framework, a set of shared principles and methodology unveiled last year by the coalition and currently used to display emissions data on Google Flights as
well as by additional Travalyst partners Skyscanner, Booking.com and Trip.biz –
the corporate travel arm of Trip.com.
“For Google, this collaboration is about enabling
greener travel choices, through greater access to transparent and credible
emissions information,” said Sebnem Erzan, head of travel sustainability and transport
partnerships at Google.
“EASA and Lufthansa Group will be critical partners in
these efforts, and we highly value this opportunity to work across the public
and private sector in pursuit of a more sustainable future.”
Luc Tytgat, director of strategy and safety management
for EASA, said: “Working partnerships such as this are essential if we are to move
forward quickly to a better understanding of how to assess emissions and to
provide greater transparency on the environmental impact of aviation for the general
public. Such data is only meaningful if it is credible and compiled by an
independent authority, such as EASA. We believe this can make an important
contribution to informing the traveling public as to which flights may be
considered to be greener.”