December 11, 2024
SINGAPORE – Singapore Airlines (SIA) has joined a global platform of more than 25 airlines to exchange real-time data on turbulence, offering its pilots another tool to avoid flying through choppy air.
This comes about five months after a Singapore-bound SIA flight from London encountered severe turbulence over Myanmar, leaving a passenger dead and dozens more hurt.
The national carrier and its budget arm, Scoot, were among four airlines that recently signed up to the International Air Transport Association’s (Iata) Turbulence Aware platform, the airline industry body announced on Dec 10.
The other two airlines are South Korean carrier Asiana Airlines and British Airways, Iata said at its global media day in Geneva, Switzerland. The yearly briefing at its office was attended by more than 100 journalists from across the globe.
So far in 2024, six airlines have joined Turbulence Aware. Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific and Dubai-based Emirates signed up earlier in the year.
In response to questions from The Straits Times, a spokeswoman for SIA confirmed that the airline began using Turbulence Aware from Nov 1, giving its pilots access to real-time data so they can plan optimal flight paths and avoid turbulent areas.
She said the airline had already been using various kinds of technology and tools to manage weather and turbulent conditions before the incident involving Flight SQ321 on May 21.
The flight experienced extreme turbulence over the Irrawaddy Basin in Myanmar and had to be diverted to the Thai capital, Bangkok.
“We continually evaluate various platforms and tools to support our existing solutions for weather and turbulence management,” the SIA spokeswoman added.
Turbulence Aware, which began with just two airlines in 2019, now has over 25 carriers on board with more than 2,600 planes reporting turbulence events. This is about 7 per cent of the 35,000-strong global aircraft fleet.
Iata said more than 180 million turbulence reports have been received on the platform so far.
The data is shared almost instantly among the carriers on the programme.
The airlines previously relied solely on conventional tools such as reports from pilots during or after flights, which can be subjective, as well as weather forecast maps, which are not always reliable.
Even so, Iata’s flight and technical operations director Stuart Fox said there is “no silver bullet for categorically avoiding turbulence”, and the platform serves as a “mitigation layer” that airlines can use.
The ultimate mitigating measure to avoid the repercussions of turbulence is to wear seatbelts throughout a flight, said Mr Fox.
When asked, Iata officials did not want to be drawn into discussing the platform’s effectiveness, such as if encounters with turbulence had come down for the airlines involved. The focus, they said, is to ensure better global coverage for the platform by having as many airlines as possible take part.
At the media event, Iata’s director-general, Mr Willie Walsh, was also asked what was hindering Changi Airport’s recovery to pre-Covid-19 passenger traffic levels.
Changi is expected to miss its target of a full recovery by the end of 2024, even with the year-end holiday bump.
Between January and November, about 61.2 million passengers passed through the airport – 98.9 per cent of 2019 levels. Some 68.3 million passengers used the airport in 2019.
In early December, Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat said he was confident passenger traffic volumes at Changi Airport would exceed pre-pandemic levels in 2025.
Mr Walsh said Changi Airport is in an area “impacted by the slower recovery in the general Asia-Pacific region”, where international travel within the region is still about 5 per cent below 2019 levels.
The availability of wide-body aircraft also remains an issue for airlines owing to delivery delays, and engine problems have meant that airline fleets are not operating at the same pace as before, said Mr Walsh, who used to be the chief executive of British Airways.
“These are problems or challenges outside the control of the airport or the airlines, and when we see an improvement, you will see Changi getting back (to pre-pandemic levels),” he added.
Saying that Changi remains one of the most popular airports, he quipped: “I can tell you Geneva Airport is mad keen to get a Geneva-Singapore service. They would love to be connected to Singapore.
“But getting an airline to commit to that in an environment where they don’t have all of the wide-body aircraft that they need is clearly going to be more challenging than it would have been 10 years ago.”