How climate change is impacting flights in the UK – with more frequent disruptions and worsening turbulence

Climate change is already making life harder for UK aviation, with experts warning that storm disruptions, clear-air turbulence and even flooding at airports are all likely to get worse in the coming years

Industry experts have warned that hotter, stormier and less predictable weather is likely to cause more frequent disruption to flights and airport operations.

Whether it’s 12 hour delays or outright cancellations, chaos in the aviation isn’t anything new. But according to people within the industry, it’s the sort of thing we should expect to see more of as the climate changes and weather systems become less predictable.

Bumpier skies ahead

Tim Atkinson, an airline risk consultant and former pilot, told the BBC there was a real risk that all of London’s airports could be hit by storms simultaneously in th near future.

“We’re going from the kind of weather activity which takes out an airport, and which the system kind of copes with, to a situation where it would be possible to lose all of the London airports from real-time operation quite swiftly and with little notice,” he said.

Then there’s clear-air turbulence – the kind you can’t see coming because there are no clouds to signal it. This, experts warn, is already much more common than it used to be, according to Prof Paul Williams from the University of Reading. He told the BBC that incidents over the North Atlantic have increased by 55% since 1979.

Researchers have also highlighted rising risks from flooding, turbulence and longer rerouting, with the added costs expected