Data-driven green flying: Tackling food waste at 30,000 feet

Abstract: China Southern Airlines is committed to corporate social responsibility. Based on innovative products and service models, the company integrates the concept of green development into services and makes it runs through all aspects of passenger travel, thus constantly improving the passengers’ environmental awareness. In response to the national call for ecological conservation, the “Green Flight” service program launched by China Southern Airlines encourages passengers to opt for on-demand meals and reduce food waste during their flights. For passengers who do not require a meal (offered drinks only on board), they can receive additional mileage rewards. Since the program’s launch in 2019, the company has saved nearly 1.2 million on-board meals as of December 31, 2020, equivalent to saving 570 tons of food.

Challenge

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, roughly 1.3 billion tonnes of food are lost or wasted globally each year, with one in every nine people facing hunger. In China alone, approximately 17–18 million tonnes of food are wasted annually in the catering sector — equivalent to the annual grain consumption of 30–50 million people. Through field research and big data analysis, China Southern Airlines (CSA) discovered that a significant proportion of in-flight meals go uneaten because passengers have already dined before boarding or simply have no appetite during the flight. Since aviation food safety regulations prohibit the redistribution of untouched meals, this represents a systemic resource drain. In 2019, China’s civil aviation sector carried 660 million passengers; assuming 10% did not eat their in-flight meal, approximately 66 million meals were wasted. Challenge was clear: how to deliver meals with precision and eliminate waste at altitude.
 Solution

CSA launched the Green Flight service in April 2019, leveraging big data analytics to precisely gauge passenger demand, simultaneously improving service quality and slashing food waste.

On the demand side, passengers receive SMS invitations to opt out of their in-flight meal in exchange for mileage rewards — a choice available via the CSA app, WeChat, or the customer hotline. Participants receive beverages instead of a meal. Piloted in Guangzhou, crew members can also pre-order meals 24 hours in advance, further reducing surplus.

On the production side, CSA’s in-flight catering subsidiary integrated its ERP system with passenger preference data, building a unified information backbone for meal planning, recipe management, and tableware logistics. Dedicated staff monitor flight dynamics and meal demand every two hours, enabling precision production and just-in-time distribution.

For awareness, CSA placed “clean plate” signage in the Guangzhou Pearl Lounge and ran anti-food-waste digital posters across more than 100 touchpoints at Baiyun Airport, including terminals, boarding gates, and partner hotels and restaurants. By July 2020, the Green Flight initiative had attracted 390,000 participants, avoiding approximately 390,000 wasted in-flight meals.

Impact & Value

Environmental: Green Flight demonstrably reduces food resource waste and waste disposal volumes, since uneaten in-flight meals typically cannot be recycled and are incinerated or landfilled.

Passenger experience: Precision demand targeting spares uninterested passengers the intrusion of unwanted meal service, allowing more rest time during their journey.

Industry benchmark: The China Green Development Foundation praised the initiative for solving the long-standing pain point of passengers being forced to accept unwanted meals, urging all airlines to embed ecological principles into every service detail.

Innovation: CSA’s three-way integration — passenger data linked to the cabin mobile system, meal data linked to Green Flight data, and mileage rewards linked to meal savings — provides a replicable green transformation model for the aviation services industry.