Real-Time Weather Tech Bringing Confidence to Aviation Safety

Put yourself in the seat of Thomas Amdal, an airline pilot who’s been flying for 27 years. Thomas is telling us about the time he was due to land in Palma and he unexpectedly had to deal with flying in a large storm. He used his experience to deal with the situation, re-routing the plane safely to Ibiza. But even with his skills and instincts gained over a long career, the weather hazards still hit him hard.

“Had I known about the storm ahead of time, I would have changed my alternate. I would have taken more fuel, changed the strategy. And most importantly, I would have changed my mindset. Because when you go somewhere and you know it’s going to be tough, you are more alert. Instead I got a surprise and it was not comfortable.”

As we know, weather situational awareness is essential when it comes to flying. It’s going to be even more important. Thomas says over the course of his career, he has seen the weather become more severe and change more suddenly than it did in the past. SITA's suite of tools and applications can give pilots a huge boost in this area.

“On that Palma flight, the intensity of the storm coming in changed everything at such a speed. I’ve never seen that before.”

Tech has obviously changed hugely since Thomas began flying in 1997. Apple released the iPad in April 2010, but even so, pilots using tablets to plan flights, monitor weather or check other data is still a relatively recent development. Thomas and fellow pilot Shivam Chandra both told us that on flights that haven’t had connected cockpits, passengers with WiFi have had access to more real-time weather information than the people flying the plane!

In eWAS, Stations View gives a visually attractive, color-coded guide to airports. The simple, intuitive display aids a pilot’s decision-making, saving a lot of time.

Great news - things are changing right now! Thomas and pilots all over the world are starting to enjoy the confidence of real-time weather awareness in the cockpit. Today, we have powerful technology that can aggregate vast amounts of weather data, overlaying forecasts over flight plans and finally help pilots avoid previously unavoidable events.

Thomas can see the progress, and the future. And he’s excited about what it will hold.

“I now have one piece of paper in my flight deck! That’s a big change. And the tools that we have now: they are so accurate. eWAS gives me a three-dimensional view of the weather: the vertical and the horizontal. It’s real-time, easy and accessible. The visualizations are so intuitive. I look at the wind at high altitude and my app can predict the intensity to within two knots. Or the fuel calculations that also rely on weather data. They’re also incredibly accurate.”

Supporting pilots' awareness in flight is critical to safe flying, but with weather events becoming more frequent and severe, we'll need to extend this support to others.

“The idea is to bring this technology to ATC, and dispatchers have a similar application for flight tracking. It will give everybody a single source of truth, a shared sense of situational awareness. It will lead to educated decision-making.” - Shivam Chandra, Former pilot

Thomas says pilots are naturally collaborative: “we are all pilots, we work together.” Combining technology with that collaboration across different job roles will aid flight weather planning and help pilots avoid weather hazards, making flying more efficient, safe and comfortable.

Let’s go back to that phrase Thomas used about Palma: “It was not comfortable”. We have the power to fix that. By putting pilots, ATC, and dispatchers on the same page, we can keep things comfortable for everyone, especially if that page is an interactive application with the latest weather intelligence. Whether they're sitting in the cockpit, in a control tower, operations control centre or in seat 33E, having the most current information can make the journey more comfortable for everyone.

Thomas’s account highlights the critical importance of real-time weather data for pilots. Discover how advancements in technology are transforming the aviation industry, providing pilots, controllers and dispatchers with comprehensive, up-to-date weather insights that enhance safety, efficiency, and comfort for everyone onboard.

To find out more, please visit our weather resilience site to learn about building a more robust solution to climate change.