The move strengthens the airport’s position as a global leader in climate action. Traditionally, flight emissions data has been gathered annually, and split into categories such a domestic, regional and international.

As the first airport in the Southern Hemisphere to achieve Level 5 in the Airport Carbon Accreditation programme, the Airport is now using the PACE Airports platform to better understand the emissions generated from flights in greater detail. This helps to inform data-led conversations, and the longer-term transition requirements for the airline partners coming into Christchurch Airport.

A key part of Christchurch Airport’s sustainability journey has been tracking and reducing their own on-the-ground Airport operational emissions. This new tool builds on that work by offering advanced insights into aviation-related emissions from aircraft using their airport. Analysing these emissions at a more granular level helps better understand the transition challenges facing the wider aviation sector.

The platform delivers up-to-date emissions data covering over 99% of commercial flights worldwide, tracking more than 370,000 individual routes and utilising over 10 billion flight data points. The system calculates emissions down to the type of engines an aircraft is using and can be tailored to local conditions.

Claire Waghorn, Sustainability Transition Leader at Christchurch Airport, said:

“Our key focus on this sustainability journey has been reducing our own operational emissions and then seeking to support our wider sector reductions. The insight from this platform offers us data to consider the aviation-related emissions across the entire airport operations.”

The innovative system, PACE Airports has been developed by Fexco, an Irish global fintech and financial services company. Christchurch Airport is the first airport in the world to adopt the system, which is already trusted by leading banks and aviation financiers to track aviation-related emissions across the global aviation sector.

Bertie Murphy, Chief Strategy Officer at Fexco Group, said:

“We're excited to have Christchurch Airport, a sustainability leader, utilise our platform. We strive to be the trusted source of aviation emissions data. We look forward to helping Christchurch Airport achieve its emissions reduction targets with our data and insights”.

By using PACE Airports, Christchurch Airport continues to set the standard for sustainable airport operations.