I see there’s tropical storm off Florida’s east coast. How does this affect flights going between Miami and the north. Are planes rerouted around the storm?
Say the storm is centered between both Florida coasts; what then? Maybe some pilots out there have some answers. Thanks.
IANAPilot, but I have flown a lot… including around hurricane Erin 10 years ago… so the answer is that they can almost always route the flight around the storm, even if it’s hundreds of miles wide. Sometimes the chose to fly through the storm but that’s not their favorite choice.
The problem is when the storm is sitting on or near a major airport. That usually means flights are diverted to someplace else which screws up the whole hub and spoke system. It’s similar to when an airport is snowed in…
Yep, reroutes around the storm are the norm. The routes obviously change as the storm moves, which can make the ATC (Air Traffic Control) folks pretty busy. Instead of the normal routes between JFK and FLL, you have all kinds of random routes and aircraft requesting to deviate as the storm kicks up smaller storms around it.
The effect on the overall air transportation system is minor until the storm gets close to a major hub (ie MIA). Aircraft will be evacuated from the airport prior to the storm’s arrival, and travel will be shut down until the storm passes.
And for the record, I’ve never flown through a hurricane or typhoon. I’ve gone WAY out of my way to fly around them, but never through them. Once they get down to tropical depression level then you can start going through them, but not a full-blown hurricane or even a tropical storm. Some of the newer bizjets might be able to go over the things, though.
Thanks pilot141! On that note, how big is the diversion? Say my tropical storm is over Orlando and I’m going from JFK to MIA. Are you diverted as far as the outer bands of the storm, or just some “comfortable” distance from the eye?
How tall are these storms? Is it possible to fly over them? Or was that Concorde / Blackbird only?