Milk_Dud

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 NiƱo, 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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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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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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