flight search tool can help you fly ‘greener’
SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) – Searching for flights on Google is now “greener”.
A new search feature, launched on Wednesday, lets users know which flights are lower in carbon emissions and gives them the ability to choose flights based on carbon emissions, just as they would price or number of layovers .
A simple search for flights gives an estimate of how many pounds of carbon dioxide the flight will emit from start to finish. Users can prioritize their search for emissions, similar to price, if desired. Flights with emissions below the median are highlighted in green.
According to Google, the estimates are a combination of data from the European Environment Agency and flight-specific information it receives from airlines and other providers. This data could include the age, model and configuration of an aircraft, the speed and altitude at which it is flying, and the distance between the origin and destination of the flight.
Some flights may not have estimates due to a lack of data on specific aircraft or other information, Google said. The company added that the estimates do not yet take into account which direction the aircraft is going – a potentially important factor when it comes to flying in or on the jet stream, or whether or not the flight uses biofuels or other alternatives.
With the new tool, all of United’s Boeing 737 flights will be the least polluting flights from Washington, DC to Chicago. The 128 kilograms of carbon dioxide fall 21% below the median. An American Airlines flight on another Boeing 737 from San Francisco to New York with a stopover in Dallas emits 535 kilograms of carbon dioxide, 9% less than the median for this route.
Multiple stops can often lead to an increase in emissions, but this is not always the case. Non-stop flights are not always less harmful to the environment, especially on longer routes. Google says that a more fuel-efficient plane can emit less fuel on a multi-stop trip than an older plane on a non-stop route.
Aircraft make up a small fraction of the emissions that cause climate change – around 2-3% – but their share has grown rapidly and is expected to roughly triple by mid-century as global travel increases.
Airline trading group Airlines for America says U.S. airlines have more than doubled the fuel efficiency of their fleets since 1978 and plan to further reduce carbon emissions. However, the independent International Council on Clean Transportation says passenger traffic is growing almost four times faster than fuel efficiency, resulting in a 33% increase in emissions between 2013 and 2019.
The new emissions tool follows Google last month’s introduction of how people can find “eco-certified” hotels. Also on Wednesday, Google unveiled a technology that enables drivers to find more fuel-efficient routes on Google Maps and via Google’s Nest thermostat Wind and Sun.
The new features are part of a sustainability initiative that Google CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted on Wednesday.
“Climate change is no longer a distant threat – it is increasingly local and personal,” Pichai wrote in a blog post. “We need urgent and meaningful solutions to address this pressing challenge,” he added, saying the company is committed to running its data centers and campuses on carbon-free energy by 2030.
Google, owned by Alphabet Inc., is based in Mountain View, California.
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