Lufthansa and the environment: How AI can reduce catering waste
Lufthansa's "Tray Tracker" works with AI Photo: LH
Lufthansa uses AI-supported applications to reduce food waste. After Frankfurt, "Tray Tracker" also scans returned meals in Munich.
To save weight, costs, and waste, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, and Swiss already allow passengers to pre-order their meal of choice on all flights. Furthermore, on short- and medium-haul flights, they can purchase all fresh produce at a discount on the last flight of the day. In the future, however, the prediction of what passengers will consume will be even more precise.
With the "Tray Tracker," the Lufthansa Group has developed an AI-supported solution to measure and reduce food returns from in-flight catering. This mobile technology scans meal returns from onboard catering at the dishwashing line. The AI detects whether a meal has been partially, completely eaten, or untouched. The flight route, travel class, and meal concept are also fed into the analysis. The resulting insights will enable optimized portion sizes and meal selection in the future. In this way, the "Tray Tracker" not only helps reduce food waste but also prevents overloading and thus saves weight—which in turn leads to a reduction in CO₂ emissions.
What remains of the dayLufthansa has been using the innovation at its Frankfurt location for almost a year. The AI recently began scanning trays in Munich. The "Tray Tracker" will also be used at other Lufthansa Group locations and airlines in the future. The innovative mobile device was developed by the Lufthansa Group Digital Catering Analytics Team in cooperation with the Lufthansa Group subsidiary zeroG.
Another machine learning-based project of the Lufthansa Group to prevent food waste is called "Pendle." Launched by the Lufthansa Innovation Hub in 2024, the initiative uses algorithms that analyze data points such as flight duration, flight route, and previous demand to achieve optimized loading. The long-term goal is to link the two projects.
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