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Clear skies ahead: Heathrow's tech-driven journey towards fairer flying

‘AI can help optimise flight paths and fuel efficiency’

We’re all trying to do our part for the planet, whether it’s changing how we shop, how we eat or how we get around. But there’s one habit that’s difficult to ditch: air travel.

Unlike swapping the car for public transport, nothing can really replace the speed and convenience of an intercontinental flight. That probably explains why growth in aviation demand has historically outpaced efficiency improvements when it comes to carbon production.

The industry is exploring many ways to cut its climate impact, including rerouting flights, alternative fuels and even new planes using electricity or hydrogen as a power source.

Decarbonising an industry as large and complex as aviation won't be done overnight, and tech will play an important role. Like the entire aviation sector, these solutions start and end, literally, in the airport.

Like many air travel hubs, Heathrow – the UK's largest single-site employer and Europe's busiest airport – has its own commitments. Its Heathrow 2.0 strategy aims to cut ‘in the air' carbon emissions by 15% compared to 2019 by 2030, and ‘on the ground' emissions by 45%.

"The hot topic, really across the airport, at the moment is sustainability," says Heathrow CIO Sharon Prior. "The technologies and data that we can put in place to help report on and reduce our carbon emissions are going to be key."

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She adds, "It's having the tools like AI to contribute to our sustainability goals. Using AI tooling and data can help optimise flight paths, fuel efficiency...how we manage energy in our airport buildings...[and] how we can reduce waste. There's lots of things that I think we can use AI to help optimise and generate scenarios for us."

AI is an important part of Heathrow's plans, which also include the launch of a Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) scheme, converting its ground fleet to electric, and a trial exploring the use of green building materials (an even larger carbon contributor than the aviation sector).

While much of the strategy stems from a desire to simply do the right thing (shared by more than half of IT leaders), demand is also a driver.

"I think one of the reasons why [sustainability] is so important is passengers are demanding it as well," says Bill Twibill, who works at Heathrow's IT consultancy partner Capgemini. "Travellers are taking decisions based on environmental credibility and are willing to pay a small premium for a more sustainable journey."

"It's also about the wider ecosystems," Sharon agrees. "How we engage with communities, how we engage with passengers and the different demographics that passengers have, in terms of their requirements for an airport."

By the way, travelling less could also help the planet: cutting corporate travel to 50% of pre-Covid levels could save more than 32 million tons of CO₂. Gently remind Head Office of this fact next time they want you to fly to a meeting.