Since 2013, there has been an 80% increase in delay minutes attributable to weather. This summer – and it is not over yet! – we have had large, high cumulonimbus (CB) cells in the core of Europe for days on end, making for a lot of delay.
Joe Sultana, our Director Network Manager, observed: “Aircraft operators have to avoid these CB cells but their search for gaps is not an organised process so the safe portions of airspace that are available quickly become saturated – so making for more delay.”
With climate change, weather events are becoming more intense and less predictable. There are more, increasingly severe, storms and wind; rainfall is more intense. The weather this summer has been even worse than it was last year.