🧭 Methodology

Aviation emissions are calculated with the same global method as is used to compute SEA Fret emissions. We follow EUROCONTROL's method for estimating aviation fuel burnt, for a specific asset, and deduce the amount of CO2e emitted for the parcel 📦.

The calculation method is primarily designed for countries to report their emissions and not for flight comparisons. We take into account all flight phases: Taxi out / off, Climb, Cruise, Descent, Approach, Landing, Taxi in. Each phase consumes a different amount of fuel, for each aircraft type. Furthermore, we consider the number of seats, and the max payload of the aircraft, for belly and freighters.

We allocate CO2e emissions between passengers and cargo according to EN16258 norm and use load factors (for passengers and cargo) based on the flight length : short, medium, or long.

📍 Locations

When computing CO2e values between 2 airports, you can first use our geocoder to find the IATA codes of the departure and arrival airports. Below for instance, we search for the IATA of the airport with name marseille. You can see in the result json, under the key iata is the value "MRS".

{
    "type": "FeatureCollection",
    "features": [
        {
            "type": "Feature",
            "properties": {
                "name": "Marseille Provence Airport",
                "locode": "FRMRS",
                "countryCode": "FR",
                "country": "France",
                "subdivision": "13",
                "iata": "MRS",
                "type": "airport"
            },
            "geometry": {
                "type": "Point",
                "coordinates": [
                    5.22142410278,
                    43.439271922
                ]
            }
        }
    ],
    "properties": null
}

curl --request GET 'https://api.searoutes.com/geocoding/v2/airport/marseille' \
--header 'x-api-key:  <your_api_key_here>'

🌱Emissions

You can see the list of all the parameters one can use with our AIR endpoint here. Below an example request to compute CO2e between Marseille and Vancouver.

{
    "co2e": {
        "total": 8465315,
        "wtt": 6934718,
        "ttw": 1530597
    },
    "parameters": {
        "mode": "AIR",
        "from": {
            "iata": "MRS",
            "coordinates": null
        },
        "to": {
            "iata": "YVR",
            "coordinates": null
        },
        "flightNumber": null,
        "weight": 1000,
        "aircraft": {
            "iata": "74Y"
        }
    },
    "properties": {
        "distance": 8550824,
        "aircraft": {
            "iata": "74Y",
            "icao": "B744",
            "manufacturer": "Boeing",
            "model": "Boeing 747-400F",
            "haul": "LONG"
        }
    }
}

curl --request GET 'https://api.searoutes.com/co2/v2/direct/air?fromIata=MRS&toIata= YVR&weight=1000&aircraftType=PASSENGER' \
--header 'x-api-key: <your_api_key_here>'

When users do not specify an aircraft, we revert to using a default aircraftType which can be either PASSENGER, CARGO or UNKNOWN (mix of passenger of cargo : 55% passenger, 45% cargo). In this case, we align with the GLEC methodology, and use default well-to-wheel CO2e emission intensity values, for each aircraft type and flight length.