Travelport Adopts Google Carbon Emissions Model for Flights

Travelport has incorporated Google’s Travel Impact Model for flight carbon emissions calculations, which the travel technology company said will provide more consistency across platforms.

Travel retailers using Travelport are able to access TIM carbon emission estimates on flights via the Smartpoint agent desktop tool, Trip Quote and the Travelport API Suite. They can compare carbon emission estimates across carriers at the point of sale, with the TIM estimate taking into consideration such factors as aircraft type, seat configuration, flight distance and load factor, according to Travelport.

Google has developed TIM alongside the Travalyst coalition, a nonprofit sustainable travel organization founded by Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, in 2019. Last year, Google faced criticism for excluding the impact of condensation trails for the data, but more recently, Google partnered with the International Council on Clean Transportation to form an advisory committee, composed of travel industry representatives as well as experts from academia and nonprofits, to oversee the methodology. That will include incorporating the impact of non-CO2 pollutants such as the condensation trails. 

Travelport joined the Travalyst coalition last year, and Amadeus also is a member. Sabre in June announced that it integrated TIM to show the carbon footprints of flights into its system as well.

Travelport chief product and technology officer Tom Kershaw said adopting the model aligns Travelport “with all of the major global platforms” in providing emissions data.

“Agents and travelers are seeing different carbon emissions scores and rankings for the exact same flight options when searching them in different channels,” Kershaw said in a statement. “As an industry, adopting a free, publicly accessible data framework will allow us all to be more transparent and consistent in the way travel options are displayed and scored based on factors like carbon emissions, environmental certifications, or waste initiatives.”

Travelport said incorporating the model is the first step of a wider product offering that will help agents, travelers and travel managers take environmental factors into consideration when booking.