More climate-friendly flight routes: British government is testing contrail avoidance

A plane takes a small detour - and the journey is less harmful to the climate. It almost sounds too good to be true. The British government wants to test whether the trick works over the North Atlantic.

The idea behind it: The new flight routes should avoid contrails, those white trails that aircraft sometimes leave behind them. They are formed when water vapor condenses on tiny soot particles from aircraft exhaust and freezes into ice crystals. The streaks usually disappear after a few minutes. But sometimes they stay in the sky for hours and even create artificial clouds.