The summer is about halfway over, but as extreme temperatures continue to stifle many air travellers, it could also create an impact for those hoping to travel for a vacation away from home with airline industry experts saying such heat may lead to delays or even cancellations.
Just as the travel season was beginning in June, Canadian airports were anticipating droves with Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport expecting 2.2 million passengers a month — a new record — and Toronto Pearson International Airport projecting 160,000 a day.
Even though airports said they were ready for such numbers, extreme heat can still pose a problem.
“Heat and altitude are enemies of commercial airliners,” Henry Harteveldt, an airline industry analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, told Global News.
Luton airport in London, U.K., for example, saw flights suspended in 2022 after high temperatures caused part of the runway to “lift.”
Harteveldt said when it’s hot, and even more so if you’re at an airport at a higher altitude, the air is less dense. That thinner air means the engines, the wings and even the tires of a plane “don’t work as well.”
Scientists at the College of Aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida say that thin air reduces lift on which planes rely for takeoff, but in addition, the engines produce less thrust during both takeoff and ascent.
According to Harteveldt, when facing extreme temperatures — 45 C for example — taking off can sometimes rely on things like more powerful engines or extremely long runways to give planes more time to achieve the thrust they need.
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That’s not always possible, whether due to money or the capacity for maintenance of such engines, which means airlines have to find other solutions in order to ensure they can fly especially on shorter runways.
“You want to reduce the takeoff weight of the airplane, (it’s) a thing you do to allow you to operate in higher temperatures,” John Gradek, aviation management professor at McGill University, told Global News.
“It can either be less fuel, less cargo, less passengers, less bag … And that’ll mean that you’ll have to stop somewhere along the way to pick up the fuel to get to your destination.”
Any of these changes, however, poses the risk of delay or a change to flight plan.
Gradek said airlines will often work with dispatchers to work through a flight plan and determine everything from temperature to surface runway and wind conditions before filing such a plan. In doing so, that could lead to a decision to remove cargo which could delay the flight, or put less fuel on the plane, but that could mean adding a layover that wasn’t originally planned in order to refuel.
“That’s what they had to do in order for them to basically get the airplane home as they have alternative airways, alternative operating plans, you know, so it’s not as if you’re stuck,” he said.
Airlines work to try and prevent inconvenience for travellers, Harteveldt said, but depending on what the weather and airport conditions are showing — such as at a high altitude airport like Denver on an extremely hot summer day — changes to cargo or the number of passengers could be needed.
That’s when they’ll ask travellers to change flights, likely offering things like travel credit or even a hotel and meals if the delay is going to be overnight.
“There is a certain degree of self-inflicted harm here with airlines as airlines have packed more seats into their planes, obviously more seats, more people, more weight, and that could affect the aircraft’s performance in the hot weather conditions,” Harteveldt said.
“If it’s expected that there are going to be more of these extremely hot weather days that will affect critical mass of an airline’s route network and flights, an airline may have to make a decision to say, look, in order to protect operational integrity, we have to take seats off the plane.”
— with files from The Associated Press