An IATA initiative, now live in a trial phase, has airlines
around the world sharing turbulence data for the first time.
IATA and airline trial participants say the platform, called
Turbulence Aware, has the potential to make flying safer, more comfortable and
more fuel-efficient, especially over less-traveled oceanic routes.
"This is a paradigm shift," said Brent King, the
former Qatar Airways pilot who is IATA's head of flight operations efficiency. "It
is revolutionizing the way we manage real-time turbulence data."
According to an Aug. 1 FAA fact sheet, turbulence resulted
in a yearly low of six serious injuries or fatalities and a high of 101 serious
injuries on U.S. airlines or airlines flying over the U.S. from 2009 through
2017.
But injuries that lead to hospitalization aren't the only
problems caused by air turbulence. It also scares passengers and causes air
sickness as well as smaller bumps and bruises. In addition, turbulence
interrupts meal service, causes flyers to struggle while eating or using the
lavatory and causes airlines to burn more fuel and release more emissions.
To date, airlines have mainly relied on their own data to
set flight plans and to navigate around turbulence. Pilots also rely on live
reports over the radio from nearby pilots. Some carriers, said Katya
Vashchankova, head of the Turbulence Aware program, might partner with three or
four other airlines on turbulence data sharing. But until now, the industry has
had no central repository for such data.
At present, 10 airlines are sharing data in the Turbulence
Aware trial phase, which began in February. Another 14 have signed up to
participate and are in the implementation stage. Already, though, those 10
airlines that are contributing data are generating 115,000 reports per day
showing areas of turbulence as well as areas of calm skies, Vashchankova said.
Nathan Polderman, senior manager of meteorology and
turbulence mitigation strategy for United, which is among the carriers
contributing data, said that "even with the number of airlines that are
reporting now, the amount of information is staggering."
The technology IATA is employing for Turbulence Aware was
actually developed by the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research. It
uses an algorithm to measure an aircraft's speed and angle of attack and to
sense when turbulence has caused the plane to tilt or change pace.
When an aircraft's speed or tilt change by a threshold
amount, a sensor is triggered to report eight times per second. That
information, which includes the aircraft's precise location and heading as well
as the intensity of the turbulence is transmitted to the ground within a
second, King said.
IATA's Turbulence Aware Viewer displays real-time turbulence reports up to 4 hours old. Each report is a small dot on the viewer, which are color-coded for intensity. The scale goes from gray (no turbulence) to red (severe turbulence).
Within 30 seconds, he estimated, an aircraft heading into
that location should be able to view that data in the cockpit, offering the
flight crew an opportunity to prepare, either by circumnavigating the
turbulence or by taking steps such as suspending meal service and turning on
the fasten seat belt sign.
Turbulence Aware-enabled aircraft also report on conditions
every 15 minutes when there is no turbulence.
King said that IATA's breakthrough with Turbulence Aware isn't
the software but the fact that airlines are willing to trust the organization
as the overseer and steward of their proprietary data.
Indeed, Steve Abelman, meteorology manager for American
Airlines, said the carrier has been working for 10 years toward the idea of
having a global turbulence data-sharing tool that airlines can harness. In
addition to the information the platform will provide to pilots in the air,
Abelman said he expects the system to aid dispatchers when it comes to
situational awareness, which in turn will enable them to better relay
conditions to pilots.
Abelman said Turbulence Aware data will be most helpful to
American on oceanic routes, where the carrier doesn't have the volume of
internal data that it has on more crowded domestic airways. For example, American
has few aircraft flying from the U.S. to Europe during the day.
"If you can start leveraging the reports of the other
major airlines and make that data available, it will really be beneficial,"
Abelman said.
United's Polderman agreed that the data-sharing platform
will provide operational benefits everywhere, but especially over oceans.
Turbulence forecasting will also improve.
"That will revolutionize not only our ability to detect
turbulence events but to feed that data into models," Polderman said.
IATA is targeting January for the operational launch of
Turbulence Aware. Participating airlines must integrate the system before
putting it to use for actual flight operations.
American, for example, has said it expects to have 800
reporting aircraft by the end of this year, and it hopes to completely
integrate the system by the middle of next year, Abelman said.