The Allplane Podcast #142: how to prevent contrail formation, with Maxime Meijers (Estuaire)

Sep 21

Written By Miquel

In the debate about how to aviation’s contribution to global warming there is a factor that is getting an increasing amount of attention: contrails.

These happen when water vapour and particles from the aircraft’s jet exhaust form little crystals upon entering in contact with the very cold air that prevails at high altitudes. Depending on the circumstances of the time and place, those little crystals can then have one of two opposite effects.

They can either the help cool the surface of the planet by reflecting sunlight outwards, or, more often than not, they contribute to the warming by acting as a heat trap that prevents infrared radiation from dissipating.

So, if the aviation industry wants to up its commitment to preventing global warming, what can it do to prevent contrail formation?

Our guest in this episode of the podcast is Maxime Meijers, founder and CEO of Estuaire, a French startup which is using technology to help airlines manage the contrail challenge.

In fact, Estuaire’s technology has the potential to help airlines optimize their flight plans for a whole set of variables, since it uses artificial intelligence and data models to find the optimal flight path. However, in this conversation we focused on contrail avoidance, since this has been so far Estuaire’s very distinctive value proposition.

With Maxime we talk about how this technology works, how is it implemented on a practical level and what is the business model that led Estuaire on the path of growth, with a number of prominent carriers, such as Vueling and Air France, using it for real.

Tune in for a fascinating conversation about the science and business of contrail prevention!

Things we talk about in this episode

Maxime’s background in aviation and entrepreneurship
The story of Estuaire and how it got started
What are contrails and why they matter for climate science
The state of contrail research
What can be done to prevent contrail formation
How Estuaire provides actionable data for airlines to optimize their flight paths
What is the business model of Estuaire and funding history