Weather Solutions for the Aviation Sector

Safety During Takeoff, Landing, and in the Air

The most dangerous part of any flight are takeoff and landing. Severe weather such as microbursts, downdrafts, lightning and hail in thunderstorms can push aircraft downwards, creating a significant loss of lift that can have catastrophic impacts. Fog is another hostile factor that puts takeoff and landing maneuvers at risk due to poor visibility.

Ground de-icing is critical for aircrafts on the ground, as they are susceptible to the buildup of ice. While ice on wing surfaces can increase drag and reduce airplane lift by 25 percent, ice blockage of airspeed or altitude measurement instrumentation can cause loss of control.

Convective weather conditions such as thunderstorms, lightning, icing, hail, intense up- and downdrafts, and tornadoes can cause severe turbulence, damage the aircrafts, and lead to rerouting and diversions. Being able to predict and plan ahead for these risks can save operating and maintenance costs, as well as ensure the safety of passengers.

Customer Experience and Comfort

In most cases, severe storms and turbulence are not life-threatening for people onboard an aircraft. However, they are unpleasant for passengers and flight personnel and can also lead to accidents.

Although flight routes and altitude are already agreed with air traffic control during flight planning, a pilot can ask for alternative routes if weather disturbances occur.

Precise weather information during the course of the flight allows the pilot to recognize such disturbances in good time and to initiate potential alternate routes. This ensures maximum passenger comfort and gentle handling of the aircraft.

Efficiency of Operations

Headwinds and tailwinds can greatly affect an aircraft's fuel consumption. By varying the altitude slightly, or by deviating laterally by a few kilometers along the flight path, a pilot can take advantage of smoother wind conditions and thus contribute to an efficient and equally more environmentally friendly flight. However, this requires that the pilot and controllers have knowledge of the conditions surrounding the aircraft.

The highly accurate weather information provided by Meteomatics enables the pilot to be aware of these conditions and thus optimize operational fuel costs.

Ecological Benefits

The aviation industry is also called upon to contribute to achieving the climate targets. The taxes and levies on CO2 emissions are only fiscal measures that are intended to contribute to their reduction.

So far, the impact of contrails has been less in the focus of public discussion on sustainability. However, these contribute just as much to the greenhouse effect and must therefore be avoided as far as possible.

Meteomatics offers its customers an optimal data basis for both the planning of flights and their execution. With the precise weather data, emissions and contrails cannot be completely avoided, but they can be significantly reduced. This is another reason to usefully incorporate these data and forecasts into the operators' models.

Airports Infrastructure and Operations

Airports want as many takeoffs and landings as possible and reliable planning of processes. They are particularly interested in:

• reliable weather forecasts with the lowest possible error rates
• early information about impending disruptions due to weather influences

Severe weather conditions disturb the operational efficiency of airports and are the cause of most flight delays. Boarding gates, taxiways, and runways can become inoperative due to thunderstorms, ice, snow, and fog.

It is not possible to influence weather conditions, but it is a great help for airlines and airports to know when and where drastic weather conditions will occur, which can affect the course of their operations. This allows them to plan and organize alternative solutions and necessary additional measures at an early stage.

We assist airports to determine when a weather event presents a risk to the infrastructure of an airport and if air traffic control needs to adjust their take-off/landing schedule accordingly. This helps both airports and airline companies to save operational costs and save passengers time.

Accurately forecasting weather events that can have significant impacts on the aviation industry such as fog, hail, severe localized rainfall and thunderstorms can be really challenging, particularly because low clouds and fog have the potential to severely disrupt the operations of airports.

The lack of weather observations in the lower part of the atmosphere (called the planetary boundary layer) can directly impact the accurate prediction of severe weather events. But it is precisely these weather disturbances that are so relevant for planning the operations of airports, but also for airlines.

Meteomatics developed and manufactured its own fleet of weather drones, called Meteodrones. They are engineered specifically for collecting weather observations and can operate even in some of the most challenging weather conditions e.g. severe thunderstorms. Test flights have been completed in the USA with the National Severe Storms Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

They are certified to operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) and can fly up to 6 km into the atmosphere, collecting weather observations throughout their flight.

Meteomatics ingests the data captured by the Meteodrones and other observations to run a limited area model, creating a weather forecast that excels in predictions of fog, icing, thunderstorms, severe localized rainfall and lightning.

The value of Meteodrones in particular for aviation customers has been proven in various trials. Jointly with the airport of Zurich and several national institutions, Meteomatics has successfully performed a project in order to provide more accurate weather data for the airport operator in a project called DETAF (Drone Enhanced Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts). The excellent results encouraged the partners to launch a second project with much larger scope in order to collect drone data across Switzerland (DETAF 2.0).