
Turbulence ahead…air traffic control and bad weather
24 January 2025Pilots – and most passengers too – don’t want to fly through storms. And for good reason. Severe turbulence can make flights very uncomfortable and unstable approaches can make for some hair-raising landings.
Unfortunately, disruptive weather and storms are becoming more and more frequent, which means we have to put measures in place to help manage flights in UK airspace and at UK airports during these events.
The good news is that NATS controllers are well-trained to deal with bad weather and our operational teams work closely with airlines and airport operators to inform their scheduling decisions, and so that we can safely handle as many flights as possible and keep disruption to a minimum.
You may hear of air traffic control restrictions or ‘flow regulations’ being put in place when there is bad weather. This is to reduce the number of aircraft in any given sector or at an airport when conditions are not ‘normal’, so that controllers are able to manage them safely. Extra time, attention and coordination must be given to flights, which increases complexity and workload for both controllers and pilots.
Wind speeds and directions can massively impact flight plans and schedules for a variety of reasons:
Difficulty landing: Strong surface winds (particularly crosswinds and gusts) affect aircraft coming into land, causing turbulence and significant changes in aircraft speed, heading and altitude. This can make a pilot’s job much more difficult, and on some occasions can lead to them aborting the landing to ‘go-around’ before trying again, in turn adding workload for the controllers as the landing sequence must be reorganised to fit them back in.
Slower aircraft on final approach: For busy airports, making best possible use of runway capacity is absolutely vital – but if headwinds are slowing the aircraft down, they take longer to land. This reduces runway throughput, increases airborne holding and can make the airspace even more congested.
Approach sequencing: Strong upper winds mean certain aircraft moving in a certain direction have a strong tailwind, whilst others have a strong headwind. As a result, aircraft approaching an airport from different directions reach their instructed waypoints either faster or slower than others. In a strong headwind, landing rates can fall dramatically because aircraft fly more slowly over the ground.
And even if the weather at your airport is fine, arrivals or departures may be affected by the weather elsewhere in the airspace system – possibly even in continental Europe – which then has a knock-on effect to the UK system and to an airline’s schedule.
It’s not only what’s in the air that can be affected. If winds reach exceptionally high strengths, radars may need to be switched off to protect the equipment (with controllers reverting to procedural operations instead of the usual surveillance controlling), again increasing workload. Airports can also start to run out of space if departures are delayed and aircraft are filling up the stands, meaning inbound aircraft have to be kept in holding patterns until there is room for them on the ground. We always advise crews to carry extra fuel in bad weather conditions in case of increased holding time, or even diversions.
We are lucky to have a knowledgeable team of Met Office experts embedded within the operation at our Swanwick Control Centre, and they give us the most up to date intelligence available. Sharing that with our airport and airline customers and planning together is an important part of our job.
Even with the increase in weather events and the subsequent disruption it can cause, one thing you can be sure of is that safety will always be the first priority for everyone working hard behind the scenes to get you on your way.
Comments
Please respect our commenting policy and guidelines when posting on this website.