In this episode of ‘Sustainability in the Air’ podcast, Yann Cabaret, CEO of SITA FOR AIRCRAFT, speaks with SimpliFlying’s CEO Shashank Nigam about how airlines can leverage technology and data to navigate the complex landscape of aviation sustainability.
As the aircraft business arm of SITA Group, SITA FOR AIRCRAFT focuses on driving operational efficiency and supporting compliance to help airlines achieve their sustainability goals. Cabaret also shares insights into SITA’s digital platforms and solutions aimed at reducing aviation’s environmental impact.
Here are the key highlights of the conversation:
Introduction to SITA EcoMission platform (3:46)
Non-CO2 emissions and contrails (10:26)
Tail-specific aircraft performance modelling (17:26)
Regional customisation and regulatory compliance (19:01)
OptiClimb and KLM City Hopper implementation (28:23)
SITA’s industry collaborations (31:45)
Rapid Fire! (34:44)
Keep reading for a detailed overview of the episode.
Why data-driven decisions matter for aviation sustainability
Aviation faces increasing pressure to reduce its environmental impact, but the path to sustainability is riddled with complex regulations and operational challenges.
Airlines must navigate a maze of compliance requirements while optimising their operations for both cost and environmental efficiency, says Cabaret. This is where data and technology can play a crucial role.
“The complexity of compliance that involves the type of aircraft, the type of flights, the routes you’re flying, whether you have available sustainable aviation fuel or not – the complexity that is inherent in [environmental] regulations, is quite scary for airlines,” explains Cabaret.
This complexity is compounded by the need for collaboration between various departments, from flight operations to finance, making it essential to have integrated technological solutions that can handle these multifaceted challenges.
SITA’s approach demonstrates how technology can help airlines tackle these challenges today, rather than waiting for future solutions like hydrogen or electric aircraft.
4 takeaways from the conversation
1. How Eco Mission is transforming environmental compliance
SITA’s Eco Mission platform aims to support airlines manage their environmental responsibilities by combining real-time flight monitoring with planning tools and automated reporting capabilities, to simplify compliance with carbon reduction regulations.
The platform operates through three primary components:
A real-time dashboard that monitors each flight’s applicable regulations, emissions limits and reporting requirements;
A comprehensive planning module to anticipate and calculate the costs of carbon reduction regulations through fleet and flight planning;
An automated reporting system helps airlines meet their yearly reporting obligations under various schemes, such as CORSIA and ReFuelEU.
The platform tracks four key metrics: CO2 emissions (per flight, route, and fleet), fuel consumption, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) usage, including blending rates, and carbon credits. It also monitors financial metrics related to carbon credit expenditures, SAF pricing, and potential fuel optimisation savings.
Eco Mission has been designed as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that integrates seamlessly with airlines’ existing systems.
“The idea is how do we use technology to sanitise the data and load it into a platform without this to be a meta-integration project for the airline,” notes Cabaret.
This approach minimises implementation challenges while maximising the value airlines can derive from their existing data sources.
The platform has already shown promising results, with early adopters experiencing a 3% reduction in compliance costs and a 30% reduction in staff requirements across departments. This efficiency gain allows airlines to focus more resources on actual emissions reduction initiatives rather than administrative tasks.
2. Individual aircraft performance and OptiFlight
One of the most fascinating insights from SITA’s work is the significant variation in performance between individual aircraft, even of the same type. This has profound implications for how airlines can optimise their operations for sustainability.
Cabaret explains this phenomenon: "Two A320s of that given fleet, even if they have the same engine, more or less the same age, have very different performance because their maintenance cycles have been different because they have flown into different conditions."
This understanding has led SITA to develop tail-specific modelling approaches that provide more accurate and effective optimisation recommendations.
This granular approach to aircraft performance data has enabled SITA’s OptiFlight solution to achieve remarkable results. OptiFlight analyses aircraft-specific data, cross-referencing individual tail performance with flight plan data and weather information to provide recommendations to pilots. These recommendations focus particularly on optimising climb profiles, where the potential for fuel savings is greatest.
“We’re getting interesting results [from OptiFlight]... about 5% savings on the climb out fuel, which is a very significant impact because climb is naturally where the aircraft consume the most fuel,” notes Cabaret.
3. The evolving landscape of environmental challenges
While current regulations focus primarily on CO2 emissions, the industry is beginning to grapple with broader environmental impacts, including non-CO2 emissions such as contrails and noise pollution.
The complexity of these challenges becomes apparent when considering the underlying trade-offs. For instance, the optimal altitude for fuel efficiency might not be ideal for avoiding contrail formation.
As Cabaret notes, pilots might face situations where they need to choose between flying at one altitude for optimal fuel efficiency or flying 10,000 feet lower to avoid creating contrails, even though this would increase fuel consumption.
“If you’re a pilot, you have to safely fly your passengers, meaning you can’t add constraints and new parameters all the time, be it contrails, CO2, SAF, or even variation of airspace or weather turbulence…,” says Cabaret.
SITA believes data and technology can help make these complex decisions manageable.
“We need to provide the right tools to pilots, to dispatchers, and even as an extension to controllers,” says Cabaret, “otherwise, the mission becomes too difficult when the number of constraints becomes too large.”
As environmental considerations become more complex, the industry needs increasingly sophisticated tools to optimise flights across a range of environmental impacts while also ensuring operational efficiency and safety.
However, the challenge lies not just in developing such tools but in ensuring they can offer clear, actionable recommendations for flight crews, says Cabaret.
4. The future of sustainable aviation
Despite the significant challenges facing the aviation industry, Cabaret maintains an optimistic outlook for sustainable aviation. This optimism is rooted in the convergence of multiple technological solutions and the influx of new talent into the industry.
“Now we see young people, data scientists that believe in aviation, that believe it is possible to make aviation greener, to meet our commitments by 2050,” says Cabaret. “So when I see 20-year-olds knocking at our door and joining our teams, well, that gives me a lot of hope because I can see the talents coming.”
SITA’s vision for the future includes expanding its platforms to handle new environmental considerations, such as contrail avoidance and noise reduction, while continuing to improve operational efficiency.
The company’s role, as Cabaret describes it, is to be “the body that is called when the industry has a problem... that specific phone behind the glass that you break, and you call SITA.”
This balanced approach to aviation sustainability – combining immediate operational improvements with long-term technological development – represents a practical way forward for an industry seeking to align environmental responsibility with operational reality.
‘Sustainability in the Air’ is the world’s leading podcast dedicated to sustainable aviation. Through in-depth conversations with top aviation leaders, we break through the clutter and provide a clear roadmap for a net-zero future.
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