DECISIONX

DECISIONX is a contrail-management product suite from Aerospace Carbon Solutions, the GE Aerospace unit that acquired its developer, SATAVIA, in 2024. Persistent contrails add to aviation's climate impact, and with monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of non-CO2 effects under the EU Emissions Trading System from 2025, aircraft operators need to quantify and reduce that impact.

DECISIONX runs proprietary numerical weather prediction (NWP) modelling to forecast water vapour and identify the ice-supersaturated regions where persistent warming contrails form. Earth observation data from Meteosat and Sentinel satellites feed this modelling, and a trajectory-based contrail radiative impact model estimates the climate impact of each flight. The service analyses an airline's schedule to select target flights and returns guidance to flight dispatch before departure, or to pilots via the electronic flight bag in flight. After the flight, it analyses the flown trajectory against the original flight plan to quantify the avoided climate impact in CO2 equivalent. Aircraft location data has come via ADS-B, including from Spire's commercial smallsat constellation.

In ESA-supported demonstrations with 12 airline operators, including Condor, SunExpress and Icelandair, 65 flights were modified for contrail management. The average saving was 43.6 tonnes CO2e per flight, and fuel burn rose by about 0.8% per flight on average. SATAVIA signed a multi-year commercial agreement with Etihad Airways. With the certification body Gold Standard, the provider is developing a methodology to generate Certified Mitigation Outcome Units (CMOUs) that operators can retire against sustainability targets or trade on voluntary carbon markets.