UK and Google Launch Operation Blue Skies, First State-Backed AI Trial to Cut Contrails Over Shanwick

Google, NATS, the UK Met Office, Contrails.org, Imperial, Cambridge and the UK DfT launched Operation Blue Skies on Aug 18—a 30-month, £5M program billed as the first state-backed trial to avoid contrails across an entire oceanic airspace. Google contributes £1.4M in-kind for AI contrail-prediction models and satellite-based verification; ~10,000 flights per year through the North Atlantic Shanwick airspace will get altitude tweaks during two four-month operational trials in winter 2026-27 and 2027-28. Contrails account for roughly a third of aviation's climate impact.