Airlines around the world might be able to minimize their impact on the environment by changing their flight path. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom found that changing the routes of certain flights could reduce airplanes’ climate impact by up to 10 percent.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, showed that such changes would bump costs for airline operations by only one percent.

“Climate-friendly routing of aircraft has an exciting potential to decrease the climate impact of aviation without the need for costly redesign of aircraft, their engines and airports,” said Keith Shine, professor of meteorology and climate science at the University of Reading and one of the study’s lead authors. “With more targeted research, it could become a reality in the next 10 years.”

The team came up with the solution by calculating emissions and simulating air traffic situations for 85 different routes for each of the 400 flights that cross the Atlantic Ocean each day. However, the researchers noted that though the research was promising, the concept was “not mature enough to be directly implemented in the real world.”

Airplanes, both passenger and cargo, are a major contributor to carbon emissions around the world. The average Boeing 747 burns roughly five gallons per mile, or 36,000 gallons over the course of a ten-hour flight. In the United States, that accounted for roughly three percent of the country’s total carbon emissions in 2013.

In October 2016, countries around the world agreed to cut emissions from airplanes for the first time ever. During the International Aviation Retreat in Montreal, 191 nations pledged to curb or offset their emissions. The agreement set emissions in the year 2020 as the upper limit and decided that airlines who exceed the limit would be responsible for offsetting them by funding green areas or other carbon reducing activities.

RELATED STORIES
Climate United kingdom