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Milk_Dud t1_j0tr6kt wrote

Airline pilot here. Generally speaking, climate change results in more weather extremes, which will increase our workload. Stronger and more widespread thunderstorms means we'll be deviating potentially further and more often. Colder temperatures in uncommon areas means we'll be de-icing in places and times of the year we may not have used to before. Hotter summer temperatures which degrade aircraft performance means we'll be more restricted in the weight we can take. There are hard weather limits in our operations, and we may find we're hitting these limits more often.

But better engineering of new aircraft does provide certain reliefs. For example, more efficient and powerful engines give better climb performance and range. Lighter and stronger composite materials let us fly higher, many times above the weather. Better radar and detection systems allows us to paint a higher resolution picture of weather systems resulting in better decision making. But at the end of the day, these improvements won't allow us to just fly into a storm that's over the airport. And I hate to say it, but higher workload means more chance of error, degrading the margin of safety by a measurable amount. There is more risk, but at least it's not anything totally new. We've been dealing with these things for quite a while, and I think we're pretty dang good at navigating them by this point. As an example, microburst and windshear detection systems came to be after a couple high-profile crashes. Now we have these tools to avoid them entirely. It's not a total panacea, but sure does help.

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jigjiggles t1_j0tuid6 wrote

Thanks, this made me feel better. I understand the science of aircraft, and the intensive training required of pilots - as well as the sophisticated engineering that props it all up. But I still get scared on bumpy planes - flew to Brazil from Spain last year and the whole flight felt like I was a sock in a tumble dryer.

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Milk_Dud t1_j0u02q5 wrote

Sounds like you were flying right through the ITCZ. Over the ocean, when we're not in radar contact, having to use HF communication and strict adherence to pre-assigned clearances, any deviating can be complicated (there are procedures for it though). Barring the AF447 crash, modern airliners are really good at handling turbulence and weather. I sleep quite easy, regardless of the bumps.

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lockedaway_imosten t1_j0u189l wrote

Airline Pilot here as well. I fly the SAM routes from Europe very often. Deviating the weather in the ITC is not a problem at all, thanks to CPDLC getting a revised clearance happens in literally no time. It’s still rough some times, but avoiding the core of the storms is not an issue really.

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Milk_Dud t1_j0u1ugi wrote

Look at you with your working CPDLC. Fancy man! Most of our fleet doesn't have it. You probably know that part of the world better anyway.

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jigjiggles t1_j0u81xr wrote

This is so interesting - thanks for the info! Somehow getting more information makes me more at ease. I travel pretty regularly between Europe and South America - has there been a noticeable increase in turbulence or unexpected weather patterns lately? Just curious if climate change is mussing up our pilots as well.

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Milk_Dud t1_j0vsm21 wrote

I don't think so. With so much variance in weather, el and la Nina years etc, it's hard to really say definitely. Don't think anyone is tracking aviation weather related trends like this, since the ride quality and effect on operation is so subjective

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jigjiggles t1_j0w4hhm wrote

Ah yeah makes sense - thanks for getting back to me!

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TacoCult t1_j0u6klw wrote

Do you know if airplane diversions due to weather are logged anywhere? It could be an interesting dataset.

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Milk_Dud t1_j0vtryn wrote

I highly doubt it. They're so common and dependent on so many variables, I don't see much of a point. Airlines start and stop service due to demand, meaning an airport with increased service will inherently have more diversions, not necessarily weather related. Then you get different aircraft being added to a fleet while others being taken out (having different capabilities). Throw in a pandemic, el Niño, maybe a pilot shortage and some political unrest, and I just don't see how anything meaningful could be gleaned off such data. As for deviating around weather, it's as common as changing lanes on the freeway. It's just not tracked on a macro scale.

Edit; I sometimes get used to using aviation terms that may not be common for others. Deviating means flying around something (ie weather). Diverting means going to a different destination/airport entirely

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