Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine
Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance
Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust
Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine
Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History
Luxembourg Centre for European Law
Luxembourg Centre for Socio-Environmental SystemsAviation Data
A Review of Databases and Sources Related to Airline CO2 Emissions
This webpage provides an overview of data sources in the context of aviation with an emphasis on emissions related resources. This is not an exhaustive or an extensive list, but it provides a good starting point for further search and research. In particular, policy makers can follow up on this initiative and provide a more comprehensive set of tools and resources to facilitate a complete and consistent database.
While the focus is on databases with global orientation, we do briefly review relevant datasets available from the US DOT as they serve as a benchmark and a starting point for our template for data sharing. This table was originally developed as an appendix for our manuscript entitled “Decarbonizing the Aviation Industry: Data Challenges and a Template for Enhancing Practice and Research.”
If you have any suggestions, comments, or additions to this compendium, please get in touch with either of the co-authors.
Compiled by Benny Mantin a and Rico Merkert b
a Luxembourg Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LCL), Faculty of Law, Economics, and Finance (FDEF), 6, rue Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, L-1359 Luxembourg, University of Luxembourg. E: benny.mantin@uni.lu. T: +352 4666 44 5815.
b Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, The University of Sydney Business School, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. E: rico.merkert@sydney.edu.au; T: +61 2 911 41883.
| Source | Description | Features | Link | Challenges |
| Emissions related sources | ||||
| Atmosfair | Carbon efficiency ranking of the 200 largest airlines of the world | Breakdown for short-haul ( less than 800km), middle, and long-haul (more than 3,800km) | https://www.atmosfair.de/en/air_travel_and_climate/atmosfair_airline_index/ | Short panel; only 200 airlines |
| Travel Impact Calculator | Calculates climate impact of individual flight trips | Individual flights | https://travelimpactmodel.org/lookup/flight supported by the Github page https://github.com/google/travel-impact-model | Requires input of origin, destination, carrier code and flight number; only available for future flights |
| IATA CO2 Connect | Calculates climate impact of characteristic flight trips | Estimate CO2 per person | https://www.iata.org/en/services/data/environment-sustainability/co2-connect/ | Requires input of origin, destination, and aircraft type |
| ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator (ICEC) | Calculates climate impact of characteristic flight trips | Estimate CO2 per person, possibly by class, and option for weight | https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/CarbonOffset/Pages/default.aspx | Requires input of origin and destination; average across aircraft types |
| Eurocontrol | Small emitter tool (SET) | Estimates of fuel burn and CO2 emissions | https://www.eurocontrol.int/tool/small-emitters-tool | Only aircraft and distance as key inputs |
| Eurocontrol | Base of aircraft data (BADA) | Higher resolution of fuel burn and CO2 emissions estimates | https://www.eurocontrol.int/model/bada | Requires a license |
| Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) | Individual flight characteristics | Fuel burn, distance, average speed, passengers, freight. | https://www.gov.br/anac/pt-br/assuntos/regulados/empresas-aereas/Instrucoes-para-a-elaboracao-e-apresentacao-das-demonstracoes-contabeis/envio-de-informacoes | Only flights with either origin/destination in Brazil |
| Aircraft characteristics | ||||
| Planelist | Airliner production and owner histories | Extensive ownership data | https://planelist.net/index.html | Individual spreadsheets by plane; voluntary work |
| Planespotter | Registration data | Aircraft, configuration, engine, airline, delivery date | https://www.planespotters.net/ | Crowdsourced |
| Planelogger | Registration data | Aircraft, configuration, engine, airline, delivery date | www.planelogger.com | Crowdsourced |
| AirFleets | Registration data | Aircraft, configuration, engine, airline, delivery date | www.airfleets.net | Crowdsourced |
| Flight characteristics | ||||
| OpenSky Network | Open access of real-world air traffic control data; aircraft database | Open-source Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and Mode S data | https://opensky-network.org/data/datasets Github page with supporting tools https://github.com/xoolive/traffic | Crowdsourced |
| ADSB-X | ADS-B/Mode S/MLAT feeders | Flight/route monitoring data | https://www.adsbexchange.com/ | Crowdsourced |
| Flightradar | Flight tracking statistics | Flight data and aircraft details | https://www.flightradar24.com | Paid access for historical |
| Airports | ||||
| Airports Council International (ACI) | Annual World Airport Traffic Dataset | Passengers (international and domestic), air cargo, aircraft movements; airport KPIs | https://store.aci.aero/product-cat/data-reports/ | Paid access |
| Airport Guide | Airport features | Terminals, runways, airmen, fuel suppliers and grade | https://airportguide.com/ | Terminals only as maps |
| General aviation resources | ||||
| Skytrax | Airline, Airport, Lounge ranking | Ranking and commentary | www.airlinequality.com/ | Methodology and data collection |
| Seat Guru | Airline seat maps | Configurations of aircraft | https://seatguru.com/ | Current configurations |
| IATA | Fuel monitor, passenger/ cargo analyses | Weekly fuel, monthly passenger and cargo | https://www.iata.org/economics | Paid access Fuel only current (1) |
| A4A, A4E and other airline associations | Industry statistics | Ad-hoc statistics related to contemporary priorities | https://www.airlines.org/; https://a4e.eu/ | Ad-hoc, no clear overview of data availability |
| ICAO | Diverse sources on airlines, traffic, agreements | Monthly monitor on passenger/ cargo traffic, World’s Air Services Agreements, ICAO DATA+ (financial, traffic, personnel and fleet information about commercial air carriers) | https://www.icao.int/Pages/default.aspx | Paid access |
| Eurocontrol | Emissions, operations en-route/ at airports, traffic | Summary statistics | https://ansperformance.eu/data/ | High level of aggregation |
| FlightsFrom | Schedule summary statistics by origin airport | Summary by destination by carrier | https://www.flightsfrom.com/ | No historical data |
| OAG, Cirium, CAPA, ch-aviation | Schedules, OD analyses, pax, emissions, fleets, flown distance, runway usage, timestamps | Aggregations by market/OD on monthly basis | https://www.oag.com/; https://www.cirium.com/ | Paid access |
| GDSs | Transacted fare data | Ticket level data | https://www.sabre.com/; https://amadeus.com/en | Paid access |
| National aviation authorities, regulators | Traffic, on-time performance, safety | Summary statistics | e.g., https://www.caa.co.uk/data-and-analysis/ | Often high level of aggregation |
| Leasing companies | Fleet data, maintenance data | Very detailed aircraft data | https://www.aercap.com/; https://avolon.aero/; and others | Confidential |
| OEMs (Boeing, Airbus, Embraer) | Demand forecasts, traffic data, engine data | Very detailed aircraft and demand data | https://aircraft.airbus.com/en/customer-care/fleet-wide-care/aircraft-technical-data https://www.airbus.com/en/products-services/commercial-aircraft/global-market-forecast etc. | Paid or confidential unless high level of aggregation |
| US DOT and related | ||||
| DB1B | Transacted fares | Quarterly summary, origin, destination, marketing and operating carrier | https://www.transtats.bts.gov An archive compiled by Severin Borenstein is available at https://www.nber.org/research/data/department-transportation-db1adb1b | Reported on a quarterly basis, missing small carriers and other sampling issues as mentioned in Department of Transportation (2005) |
| T100 | Scheduled flights | Monthly basis, includes cargo and charter, summary of passengers and freight. | https://www.transtats.bts.gov | Sampling issues as mentioned in Department of Transportation (2005) |
| On time (2) | Flight level on time performance information | Origin, destination, operating/ marketing carrier, scheduled and actual wheels on/ arrival time/ departure time/ wheels off, delays reasons, diversion information | https://www.transtats.bts.gov | Missing resolution on ground activities |
| T2 | Air Carrier Statistics by Aircraft Type | Breakdown of traffic, capacity, and fuel usage by aircraft type for each carrier | https://www.transtats.bts.gov | Aggregation by aircraft type, obscuring individual flights’ performance |
| FAA AIDS | Federal Aviation Administration Accident and Incident Data System (AIDS) | Detailed incident and accident data | https://www.asias.faa.gov/apex/f?p=100:189:::NO | |
| NTSB | Aviation Accident Database of the National Transportation Safety Board | Aviation investigation data | https://carol.ntsb.gov/ | |
| Additional useful resources | ||||
| OpenStreet | Travel times to airports | Estimate free-flow driving times | https://planet.osm.org/ (for China only http://download.geofabrik.de/asia/china.html); Open Source Routing Machine http://project-osrm.org/. | |
| GPW | Gridded Population of the World | Estimated number of people living at a resolution of less than one square kilometer | https://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/collection/gpw-v4 | Every 5 years |
| GEcon | A geophysically based dataset on economic activity for the world | Gross cell product (GCP)—a regional equivalent of gross domestic product—measured at a 1-degree longitude by 1-degree latitude resolution at a global scale | https://gecon.yale.edu/ | Lacking recency (only 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005) |
(1) Historic fuel data can be retrieved from https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/oil/refined-products/jetfuel, but this has paid access.
(2) According to Mayer and Sinai (2003): “In 1988, the U.S. Department of Transportation began requiring all airlines with at least 1 percent of all domestic traffic to report flight-by-flight statistics on delays for the top 27 airports in the United States.1′ This rule was passed as a result of a public outcry over the growth in air traffic delays in the 1980s. In addition, the major carriers covered by this rule agreed to voluntarily report data on all of their flights to or from the remaining domestic airports.”