Introduction

Climate change is causing temperatures to rise, while increasing the intensity of severe weather. Immense wildfires have ravaged California and Australia's New South Wales, and heavy storms have battered parts of Europe and the American Eastern Seaboard.

These already severe weather events are becoming more extreme, and have a significant impact on commercial air travel. Climate change is already linked to more frequent turbulence, dangerous flying conditions and an increased difficulty in aircraft take-off. As weather conditions continue to deteriorate around the world, fliers must be prepared to accept the increased likelihood of delays and cancellations at any airport they fly from.

Increased Turbulence

Air turbulence occurs when there are irregularities with airflow, which results in bumpiness and shaking during flights. Turbulence is produced by jet streams, thunderstorms, and even the exhaust from other aircraft, but global warming is speeding up the Earth's jet streams and creating more severe patches of turbulence. The main form of turbulence produced by warming, Clear Air Turbulence (CAT), is the most dangerous type of turbulence. It's often undetectable by instruments on aircraft and the ground, and every degree of warming is modeled to increase CAT by 10%.

Turbulence may have forced you to stay in your seat during a bumpy patch, or even induced motion sickness. But as these turbulent events become more severe, their danger increases as well. Already, severe turbulence occurences have injured dozens, tossing passengers around the cabin. These events will only worsen as Earth's jet streams continue to speed up.

Increased Flight Times

If you've ever flown an eastbound flight, like a trip to Europe departing from America, you might have noticed that it takes less time to get to Europe than to get back home. This is because of the jet streams over the Atlantic: powerful winds that blow to the east. These winds speed aircraft up when flying east, and slow aircraft down when flying west.

Climate change is increasing the speed of these jet streams. This means that eastbound flights will continue to shorten as westbound flights become longer. But these changes don't chancel out. The gains from the eastbound flight don't offset the losses on the westbound return, and overall, round-trip flight times actually increase, and require greater fuel consumption. In fact, a recent non-stop flight from Europe to the West Coast was forced to make a refuelling stop, after encountering particularly strong jetstreams.

Increased Heat-Related Cancellations

An airplane requires lift to take off, and it's easier to generate lift when the air is denser: when air is cold. Larger aircraft tend to have larger engines with more power, but many of America's regional flights are serviced by small regional jets. These airplanes are smaller, carry less passengers, and have small engines. Because these engines produce less power, many aircraft are incapable of taking off in high temperatures when air is thinner. As temperatures increase, takeoff-weight restrictions are issued, limiting passenger load to ensure the aircraft is capable of takeoff.

In the summer of 2017, This became an issue at Phoenix Sky Harbor, when temperatures soared above 118°F. Hundreds of regional flights were cancelled across the span of several days, as the regional jets operating these routes were unable to take off. At some airports like New York-LaGuardia and Washington D.C.-Reagan National, these heat issues worsen existing takeoff-weight restrictions. These smaller airports have limited runway lengths and often already prove challenging to take off from.

Increased Storm Severity

Climate change is increasing the severity of storm systems, which can ground flights at hub airports, disrupting hundreds of flights across the network. In 2022 and 2023, irregularly strong storms disrupted operations in Dublin, Amsterdam and London, leading to thousands of severe delays and hundreds of cancellations. In 2025, a strong hailstorm stretching from Atlanta to Charlotte grounded hundreds of flights, severely disrupting domestic flights in America.