ICCT’s AIRLIFT: Airport-level air quality impact evaluation powered by Spire’s global flight data
Written byTjasa Pele
Digital Marketing Specialist
Airports are hubs of movement, connection, and economic growth. But behind the scenes of every take-off roll, final approach, and taxiway queue lies an environmental story that has remained largely invisible to the public, and even to many experts.
While global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions dominate conversations about aviation’s climate impact, the air pollution released during take-off, landing, and ground operations, such as smog precursors like nitrogen oxides (NOx) and hydrocarbons plus fine particulate matter (PM2.5) shape the air quality in the neighbourhoods where people live, work, and breathe.
Much of the activity around airports has been invisible from a data standpoint. Many airports don’t publicly report emissions. Unscheduled flights, private jets, business aviation, medical transports, and charter services are often left out of traditional datasets, even though they can contribute significantly to local pollution. And even when flight information is available, accurately estimating pollutant levels requires matching each aircraft to its specific engine type and applying complex emissions models, something that is nearly impossible without complete, high-quality data.
“AIRLIFT reveals aviation’s local environmental footprint for the first time at a global scale. By partnering with Spire, we’re helping policymakers, airports, and the public see where aircraft emissions happen so that they can take action.”
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The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) is changing that narrative with the launch of the AIRLIFT Data Explorer. This is the first publicly available global database to track airport-level emissions from the landing–take off cycle across 5,000 airports worldwide. Powered by Spire Aviation’s comprehensive ADS-B flight data, AIRLIFT illuminates where aviation-related air pollution occurs, how much is generated, and which flight types contribute the most. It empowers communities with knowledge, equips policymakers with evidence, and provides analysts with the first global benchmark.
Opening the black box of airport emissions
The AIRLIFT Data Explorer offers a consolidated view of emissions from a wide range of flight activity, including passenger operations, cargo movements, and general aviation. It covers both scheduled and unscheduled (private and charter), which are less visible in traditional reporting but can contribute meaningfully to emissions at the airport level.
Through an interactive platform users can:
- Identify areas near airports where pollutant levels may be higher.
- Compare emission levels across different airports or geographic regions.
- Support studies related to health and exposure.
- Assess the potential benefits of cleaner aircraft and operational technologies.
By gathering these datasets into one accessible resource, AIRLIFT helps provide a clearer understanding of how aviation activity affects local air quality. This can aid policymakers, researchers, airports, and community organizations in examining environmental impacts that have historically been difficult to quantify with consistency.
How Spire’s multi source ground and space-based data fusion strengthens AIRLIFT
Spire’s global ADS-B flight data plays an important role in enabling AIRLIFT’s emissions estimates. By capturing every type of flight activity, scheduled and unscheduled flights, including private aviation, business jets, and general aviation, Spire Aviation provides ICCT with the complete operational visibility needed to model airport-level emissions.
- Full operational visibility by capturing scheduled and unscheduled flights, ensuring private, charter, and general aviation movements are counted.
- Provides aircraft-specific details, which allow ICCT to match each aircraft to its engine type for accurate emissions modeling.
- Transparent and reliable insights and comprehensive flight coverage that make AIRLIFT a trusted foundation for environmental benchmarking and impact analysis.
The result is better accuracy, transparency, and reliability that sets AIRLIFT apart. With complete flight data and precise modeling inputs, the platform offers the most detailed global picture of aviation’s local environmental footprint.
Looking ahead: a platform that will evolve with the industry
AIRLIFT is designed to evolve as aviation activity and environmental expectations change. ICCT will periodically update the platform to incorporate new flight movements and emissions data, ensuring it reflects current conditions at airports around the world.
“At Spire, we’re proud to partner with ICCT on the AIRLIFT Data Explorer, combining ICCT’s scientific rigor with our global ADS-B data to deliver an airport-by-airport view of aviation’s local environmental impact. This collaboration reflects our shared commitment to transparency and accelerates the industry’s journey toward net-zero emissions, empowering policymakers, airports, and communities with the insights needed to drive meaningful, lasting change.”
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Users can use AIRLIFT to estimate of how sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), efficiency gains, or new aircraft technologies could influence future emissions at the airport level.
Over the longer term, the aim is for AIRLIFT to serve as a comprehensive resource for understanding how aviation’s environmental footprint is shifting, and how efforts to reduce pollution are progressing on a global scale.
A partnership advancing sustainability in aviation
By bringing together detailed flight data and emissions modeling, AIRLIFT offers a consistent way to examine local environmental impacts across 5,000 airports worldwide. The platform gives airports, regulators, researchers, and community groups access to information that can help them better understand how aircraft activity affects nearby air quality.
This shared visibility can support efforts such as identifying where operational changes may be most effective, examining compliance with air-quality goals, and comparing local conditions with broader climate and sustainability targets.
The collaboration behind AIRLIFT highlights how improved data access and analytical tools can contribute to a clearer understanding of aviation’s environmental footprint and inform ongoing discussions about cleaner and more sustainable air travel.
