Flight Calculator Methodology

 
Air travel
 
Our air travel calculator allows users to calculate their flight emissions by entering the seat type, number of stops and departure, stop-over and arrival destinations of the flight.
 
Different seat types have different emissions coefficients as each seat category takes up a different amount of space on the plane - the larger your seat, the larger your flight footprint. We use a coefficient determined by the GHG Protocol Initiative to take your seat type into account while determining flight emissions.
Airplane fuel emissions data is provided by GHG Protocol Initiative .
 
Coefficients of conversion, lbs C02 per mile flown:
 

• Short Flights (fewer than 600 miles)
• First Class: 0.543357876
• Business Class: 0.543357876
• Economy Class: 0.362367494
• No Class Defined: 0.380157147                     
• Long Flights (more than 600 miles) 
• First Class: 1.248369554
• Business Class: 0.904951907
• Economy Class: 0.312092388
• No Class Defined: 0.427725132

 
Additionally, airplane take-off and landing produces more carbon than when the plane is cruising at an altitude. We account for this in short haul flights by adding 250 pounds of carbon for take-off and landing. For multiple stop flights, we account for the extra fuel consumption at each stop.
 
To determine the flight distance, we input the latitude and longitude of the world’s airports into the Haversine equation. From there we incorporate the average emissions factor for passenger planes, times the seat size coefficient plus the take off and landing emissions to determine the flight’s total carbon footprint.