Posted: January 5, 2023
To improve the accuracy of flight emissions estimates, we updated the Travel Impact Model with more specific data on aircraft seating configurations and passenger load factors.
The model now uses OAG's fleet-level data for seating configurations. Some airlines don't file seating configuration information in flight schedules but use the same seating configuration for all their aircraft of a certain model. In this case, we default to the "Seats (Equipment Configuration) File" provided by OAG.
We also added carrier and route-specific passenger load factors for flights from, to, and within the US that take seasonality patterns into account. We use data from the US Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics. To learn more, go to the section on load factors.