AIRCLINS · Aviation Impact Reduction through CLimate INtelligence for Sustainable ATM

Aviation is a growing contributor to climate change, not only through CO2 emissions but also via non-CO2 effects such as contrails, nitrogen oxides, aerosols, and noise. Together, these non-CO2 effects account for a major share of aviation’s climate impact, yet they remain poorly understood and rarely integrated into operational decisions. At the same time, extreme weather events are disrupting flights with increasing frequency, current tools for predicting, quantifying, and mitigating these impacts are fragmented and rarely integrated into operational decision-making in both ATM and U-space systems. The AIRCLINS project responds to this challenge by developing and testing the first climate-intelligent framework for aviation. The main objective of AIRCLINS is to develop climate-intelligent concepts, models and toolboxes that enable a sustainable, safe, and resilient ATM/U-space system. AIRCLINS develop two proof-of-concept toolboxes: the ATM Climate Impact Toolbox and the U-space Eco-Safety Toolbox, providing a new generation of decision-support capabilities. Specifically, AIRCLINS will: (i) advance predictive modelling for extreme weather hazards such as low-level wind shear; (ii) design composite environmental performance metrics that integrate CO2, non-CO2, and noise into a single eco-score; and (iii) improve contrail prediction and non-CO2 climate impact assessment by combining physics-based and AI approaches. Through this integrated approach, AIRCLINS will demonstrate how aviation can evolve into a climate-intelligent system, balancing environmental sustainability with safe and resilient operations for the benefit of future societies. It progresses to TRL 1 by delivering first-generation models, hybrid AI-physics approaches, and conceptual architectures for the ATM Climate Impact Toolbox and U-space Eco-Safety Toolbox, laying the scientific and operational foundations for a future Digital European Sky that is both sustainable and resilient.