7 July 2026
For 15 years, a Lufthansa Airbus A340-300 has been carrying not only passengers around the world, but also a piece of research from Jülich. On 8 July 2011, the aircraft with the registration D-AIGT took off for the first time with an IAGOS measuring system on board. Since then, it has been collecting climate-relevant atmospheric data on regular scheduled flights - coordinated by Forschungszentrum Jülich.
IAGOS stands for "In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System". The European research programme uses commercial aircraft to continuously collect atmospheric measurement data. Today, ten aircraft operated by eight airlines worldwide are equipped with the IAGOS system. The compact measuring system is permanently installed beneath the cockpit. Outside air is channelled to the measuring instruments via probes on the aircraft fuselage. After each flight, the data is automatically transmitted to the central IAGOS database at the French IAGOS partner CNRS in Toulouse. Once scientifically validated, the data are made freely available to researchers worldwide.
The long-term datasets help us to better understand changes in the atmosphere and to improve climate models and weather forecasts.
Flying observatories for climate and weather
"With IAGOS, we use commercial aircraft as flying observatories. This allows us to obtain measurement data from regions of the atmosphere that are particularly important for climate and weather, but cannot be recorded at this level of detail and resolution using satellites or research aircraft alone," says Prof. Andreas Petzold from Forschungszentrum Jülich, coordinator of IAGOS Germany. "The long-term datasets help us to better understand changes in the atmosphere and to improve climate models and weather forecasts."
The Lufthansa Group has been supporting atmospheric and climate research for more than 30 years. Even IAGOS's predecessor system, MOZAIC, was already in operation on Lufthansa aircraft. Today, up to three Lufthansa Group aircraft collect atmospheric measurement data every day. Around 400 organisations worldwide use IAGOS data for research, climate modelling, and weather forecasting. IAGOS is also a key pillar of the World Meteorological Organization's global aircraft-based observing system.
An open database for climate and weather research
Since 1994, Lufthansa aircraft equipped with MOZAIC and IAGOS systems have completed more than 37,500 measurement flights. This has created one of the world's most comprehensive datasets on atmospheric ozone and water vapour. Forschungszentrum Jülich coordinates IAGOS in collaboration with CNRS in Toulouse, bringing together the expertise of research institutions, meteorological services, the aviation industry, and airlines.
