Many air travelers who have flown in recent years have felt it — turbulence is getting worse. In fact, research backs that up: Recent studies have found that severe clear air turbulence (CAT) has increased 55 percent in the last 40 years, due to a changing climate.
Turbulence can impact not only crew, passenger safety and equipment maintenance, but also route planning including arrival and departure times. While clear air turbulence can be tricky to forecast, access to real-time, accurate and reliable data can help mitigate its impacts on airlines.
As the world’s most accurate forecaster1 and a provider of industry-leading aviation solutions, The Weather Company offers scalable real-time weather data and insights to help airlines effectively face this challenge. It also collaborates with trusted partners to help aviation customers better plan around weather and turbulence using the latest innovations in technology, AI and weather science.
The Weather Company has expanded its innovation with turbulence data provider SkyPath. SkyPath’s crowdsourced turbulence data is now available within The Weather Company Pilotbrief® and Fusion™ products. Integrating needed turbulence observations and live notifications directly into mission critical applications helps pilots, dispatchers and flight planners make decisions to avoid or mitigate impacts of clear air turbulence.
“As clear air turbulence becomes a frequent reality, Skypath offers the aviation industry a data-based ecosystem to avoid severe conditions. We enable dispatchers and pilots to make informed decisions that enhance flight safety,” said Guy Zunder, chief product officer for SkyPath. “Working with The Weather Company allows us to continue toward that vision by blending our leading turbulence data with data from the industry-leading weather forecaster.”
SkyPath and The Weather Company first collaborated in 2023, announcing the integration of SkyPath for dispatchers available within The Weather Company Fusion product. The expanded integration now also includes critical alerting within both Fusion and Pilotbrief, as well as additional vertical profile integration of flights in Fusion.
“As weather grows more impactful due to a changing climate, managing turbulence is expected to remain a challenge for airlines and a continued safety risk,” said Ravi Vanmali, head of aviation for The Weather Company. “Airlines must incorporate the latest, most reliable data and forecasts, combined with industry-best expertise, such as that from my team and providers like SkyPath, to manage more effectively around increasingly common and disruptive turbulence.”
In addition to collaborating with SkyPath, The Weather Company is also working with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to integrate IATA Turbulence Aware data directly into Fusion and Pilotbrief tools as an additional data layer, available later in 2024.
For more on these enhanced features with Skypath, visit The Weather Company blog.