Air Serbia, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways and Vietnam Airlines signed up as data contributors to IATA CO2 Connect during the association’s Annual General Meeting in Dubai. Accurate, transparent and reliable emissions data is in the essence of robust environmental performance and IATA CO2 Connect, IATAs emission calculator, seeks to support airlines in this endeavor. The vision of IATA CO2 Connect is to ensure CO2 emissions are calculated and displayed fairly and consistently across the full travel chain, enabling harmonization and customer trust, and airlines’ data contribution is key to make this happen.
Given the complexities, the lack of harmonization and available data sources needed to accurately calculate CO2 emissions from aircraft, IATA launched CO2 Connect in June 2022. The objective is to use actual, primary airline data, such as fuel burn, belly cargo and load factors to provide accurate per passenger CO2 emissions calculations. The CO2 Connect calculator receives real operational data from around 150 airlines. Paired with other IATA and open market data sources, IATA CO2 Connect calculates fuel burn data for 75 aircraft types, representing ~98% of the active global passenger fleet, and considers traffic data from 881 aircraft operators representing ~93% of global air travel. The use of real, primary data sets it apart from other CO2 calculators which rely on theoretical, historical, or predictive models and thus apply more assumptions in their calculations.
CO2 Connect will continue to evolve and include new features. The calculator for cargo will be trialed with pilot customers later in 2024 and will provide CO2, CO2e and CO2/tkm metrics for cargo shipments. On the passenger side, the granularity of the data model is being further enhanced with the focus remaining on having a global solution delivering consistent airline representation across the travel chain. IATA will also increase its support for airlines looking to display CO2 emissions to their passengers through API support and a customizable widget.
