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How are my flight-based emissions calculated?

“How much CO2 does a passenger emit per flight?” - Lufthansa’s environmental specialists have been looking into this issue in collaboration with SWISS and myclimate. They have evaluated over 43,000 individual flights. The entire fleet has been analysed - from small regional jets to large long-haul aircraft - in order to determine the total kerosene consumption of a flight from gate to gate. The objective being to determine both the different meteorological conditions (wind) and taxiing operations on the ground, as well as holding and diversion procedures in the air. myclimate has used this as a basis for developing an algorithm that calculates the CO2 emissions corresponding to each flight. The selected flight class is also factored in and weighted. The algorithm is regularly updated with new flight data - the last time was in September 2018. Apart from CO2, air traffic creates additional emissions (in particular, nitrogen oxides and water vapour) that are also considered to have an effect on the climate. Scientific research has not yet been able to determine conclusively the extent of these effects on the climate. Therefore, the CO2 calculator provided by myclimate to Compensaid and Miles & More does not show any emissions other than CO2.