Safe Landing feature on “Plane Sight News”

Safe Landing featured in this recently article by Michael Caldwell for Plane Sight News: https://planesightnews.substack.com/p/getting-to-know-safe-landing 

Thanks to Plane Sight News for covering our story and work, you can follow them here. A copy of the article is below:

Getting to Know Safe Landing

A Profile on the Worker-led Organization Targeting Sustainable Aviation

For our next ‘Profiles’ series, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Finlay Asher, the technical lead of Safe Landing, to get to know the organization a bit better and their work in sustainable aviation. Finlay flexed his knowledge of non-CO2’s impacts of aviation and shared great insights into how Safe Landing is raising awareness amongst aviation workers and sparking policy-related conversations around contrails.

With a background in aerospace engineering, Finlay is well-versed in the ins and outs of the technical side of aviation. He has extensive knowledge spanning the breadth of the industry and was more than happy to share that knowledge.

 

About Safe Landing

First of all, let’s look at what the organization is and what they stand for. Safe Landing is a dynamic worldwide community of workers, students, and enthusiasts from across the aviation industry united by a powerful vision: living in a world where aviation flourishes in harmony with nature, allowing the beauty of flying to be enjoyed by all, for generations to come.

As an organization founded by and comprising aviation insiders, Safe Landing aims to connect and empower people to create a better future. At the heart of their mission is the drive to motivate industry leaders to align with climate science and move away from unchecked conventional growth which could further harm the environment, with a complementary focus on understanding and mitigating aviation’s non-CO2 emissions, especially contrails.

Composed of individuals who love both flying and the planet, Safe Landing promotes sustainable aviation as the key to enable aviation to develop without further harming the environment. They operate on the principle that industry leaders often have short-term interests and may ignore longer-term risks on the horizon, such as climate change. Thus, necessitating the development of an independent, worker-led vision for the future of aviation. This approach aims to bridge the “us vs. them” mentality often seen between environmental groups and industry, demonstrating that the industry can develop responsibly and conscientiously.

The Focus of Their Efforts

Safe Landing’s advocacy is structured around four key proposals for industry leaders: to (i) be honest about the total environmental impact of flying, (ii) be realistic about the limits of technology, (iii) be transparent about future regulations, and (iv) to have a plan that accounts for this and supports workers during any transition. Their work spans broad challenges, such as constructively critiquing conventional airport expansion plans, critically analyzing proposed solutions like Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), and creating initiatives and policies to raise awareness of and mitigate the full scope of aviation’s environmental impact.

These proposals are designed to safeguard the future of aviation workers whose jobs could be at risk if aviation’s growth is left unchecked. “If we blow our global carbon budget for a safe level of global warming within the next decade, as projected, then we may be forced into severely limiting our flying in the future.”

 

In a specific effort to drive policy change, Safe Landing put forth and presented concise proposals for COP29 (the 2024 UN Climate Change Conference):

• Include international aviation emissions in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted in 2025.
• Include the total climate impact of aviation (e.g., contrails) in NDCs.
• Establish an “Aviation Ambition Coalition” of leading nations (like the EU27, US, China, UK) to drive climate action.
• Introduce an international air passenger levy to replace the ineffective CORSIA scheme, with funds potentially used for decarbonization and “loss & damage” in developing countries.

Finlay pointed out that the aviation industry is projected to become the largest emitting sector in the UK within the next 10-15 years, highlighting the urgent need for action beyond decarbonization alone. A significant and growing focus of their efforts is on aviation’s non-CO2 emissions, such as contrails (which we discussed in detail) nitrogen oxides (NOx), water vapor, soot, and sulphate aerosols.

Down the Contrail Rabbit Hole

Finlay stressed that “contrails are the climate opportunity of the decade” for air travel and addressing their effects is one of the easiest ways to immediately reduce aviation’s contribution to global warming. Despite a growing scientific consensus on their impact, contrails have often been overlooked, with the industry sitting on its hands, making excuses for not addressing them. They employ delay tactics straight out of the Big Tobacco playbook, citing uncertainty as a reason not to take action.

Safe Landing counters this inaction by emphasizing that uncertainty is inherent in aviation and that it should lead to more trials and testing, not less. Finlay referenced the Precautionary Principle, asserting that potential harm to health or the environment should not be postponed due to a lack of scientific certainty. The urgency of the situation should be a driving force to mitigate that uncertainty.

The uncertainty is no longer an acceptable excuse. Metrics can be established and shared across the industry to decide whether or not to avoid a potential contrail-forming region. For instance, Finlay mentioned flight planning organizations like Flightkeys and SATAVIA, which are already developing alternative flight paths to optimize fuel and cost. They are even refining software to predict contrail-forming regions to include contrail avoidance protocols during the flight.

The Opportunity of Contrail Avoidance

The conversation shifted to practical ideas for expanding contrail avoidance. Adjusting flight routes to avoid ice supersaturated regions (ISSRs) is proving to be the most viable option, yet there is push back regarding potential extra fuel burn. However, operational strategies like varying flight speeds for fuel efficiency already exist, demonstrating that additional fuel burn for contrail avoidance could also be accommodated. Furthermore, studies like the one published by Transport & Environment highlight that the additional costs for contrail avoidance would be negligible compared to the potential climate benefits.

Finlay highlighted that fuel burn concerns from airlines feel disingenuous as pilots are regularly instructed to tanker additional fuel from where it can be purchased most cheaply, fly elongated routes to avoid national airspace charges, and fly faster than the optimum cruise speed in order to reach destinations faster. All of these economic decisions create increased fuel burn. Contrail avoidance could be limited to a less than 1-2% additional fuel burn per flight, and would only be required on less than 5% of flights, so additional fuel burn at a global level would be very insignificant.

That said, applying contrail avoidance measures across the entire industry is no small feat, as it involves the coordination of airlines, flight planners, air navigation service providers (ANSPs), air traffic management (ATM), the pilots and crew, and more. With this in mind, Safe Landing advocates for targeted contrail avoidance efforts, focusing on trans-Atlantic, long-haul, and night flights, as these have been shown to have a greater warming effect.

As part of their mission, Safe Landing is exploring practical ways to encourage contrail mitigation, such as:

• Developing a toolkit for airlines and staff: This toolkit would guide airlines through a multi-step process, starting from acknowledging contrail impact – more on this in the next section.

• Forming a “Contrail Coalition” or “CoMit”: They propose a transatlantic partnership between North American and European countries, which have a strong aviation pedigree, high flying populations, and are where most warming contrails occur. This coalition would commit to COntrail MITigation (COMIT) and could serve as a starting point for broader climate action in aviation.

• A “Contrails Pledge” for COP30: Similar to the Methane Pledge, this initiative would aim to set a target for contrail elimination and establish a pathway to achieve it, focusing on influential North Atlantic nations.

Finlay used a powerful analogy to summarize the potential impact of contrail avoidance: imagine aviation CO2 emissions are like adding t-shirts, accumulating warmth over time and difficult to remove, while contrails are a ski-jacket, an easy-to-remove layer of warmth on top. By simply removing the large ski-jacket, it enables one’s concentration to shift to removing the t-shirts. Ultimately suggesting that “removing contrails buys you more time to decarbonize,” then addressing the more persistent CO2 emissions. “If you were sweating in a sauna with all of these layers of clothing on, which would you try to remove immediately?”

A Look at the Airline Contrail Toolkit

In an effort to boost contrail awareness, Finlay described how Safe Landing is working on the idea of developing a toolkit for airlines and their staff to learn more about the issue and what they can do about it. This toolkit would include a step-by-step process of engagement:

1. At a minimum, the airline would acknowledge the climate impact of contrails.
2. The airline could provide an information page, highlighting what they know about contrails and their impact.
3. The airline would identify someone, or a team within the airline or organization, working on the issue.
4. They could provide proof showing they are actively involved in research or trials.
5. They could describe their active participation in actual contrail avoidance during routine flight operations.
6. Finally, they could share the lessons they’ve gleaned across the industry to spur further action and help to shape policy decisions.

Safe Landing envisions harnessing this toolkit as a means to achieve an industry-wide standard for contrail awareness and best avoidance practices. Airlines that attain different levels within the toolkit can receive corresponding ratings – Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc. feeding into the Airline Contrail Index compiled by Blue Lines. Safe Landing can use the diverse backgrounds of their members to share and push the progressive policies in this area broadening the reach of contrail action throughout the industry.

What’s Brewing

• Worker Assembly: On September 13th, they hosted an assembly of aviation workers to collaboratively envision a sustainable future for the industry.
• Conference Season: They will be attending various UK political conferences to discuss the economic opportunities presented by sustainable aviation.
• Innovation Series: Finlay Asher is leading an interview series featuring forward-thinking organizations that are shaping the future of aviation.
• Advocacy Day: On January 21st 2026, Safe Landing will be in the UK Houses of Parliament to present proposals concerning zero-emission aircraft and contrails.
• Ongoing COP30 Engagement: They will continue to push for the inclusion of aviation emissions, including contrails, in national climate plans.
• Media Presence: Co-founders George Hibberd and Todd Smith’s involvement in the “Guilt Trip” documentary and Safe Landing’s appearances on BBC Radio and LBC discussing airport expansion continue to raise public awareness.
• Community Growth: Safe Landing invites aviation workers concerned about the climate and the industry’s future to join their community for discussions on effective climate action.

 

In Closing

Ultimately, Safe Landing’s vision is to bridge the gap between environmental concerns and industry practices, demonstrating that a responsible and ecologically conscious aviation sector is not only possible but a win-win-win for workers, wider society, and the planet.

You can find them at:

https://safe-landing.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/safe-landing-org/