The weather is looking like a Katy Perry song for a while now – it’s hot then it’s cold, it’s yes then it’s no, it’s in then it’s out, it’s up then it’s down – utterly erratic. It is nothing to sing about, not when unexpected weather disrupts travel and event plans while extreme conditions result in aviation accidents.
Look what freak storms did to eastern and southern China in March and April – they destroyed buildings and infrastructure. Look what a rainstorm did to Dubai in April – it recorded a year’s worth of rain in just 12 hours. Look what severe air turbulence did to passengers and crew onboard three flights, each operated by different airlines, in May alone.
While aviation experts have said such severe air turbulence is rare, with resulting fatalities rarer still, social media chatter and my conversations with flight crew on separate occassions since the start of this year have highlighted more troubled flights, with bumps, scrapes, and spills becoming commonplace.
Are people withdrawing from flights then? According to data from YouGov BrandIndex in the aftermath of the Singapore Airlines SQ321 accident, which had the worst outcome – one fatal case and several severe injuries – travel considerations with the airline slumped in the following week. Fortunately, intentions rebounded by end-May.
It may be easy to brush these off as freak incidents and carry on as usual. However, it is wiser to take heed and be more stringent with inflight safety procedures for both passengers and crew.
Weather has an impact on travel programmes too – some tour and experience operators in parts of South-east Asia that are baked by hotter than usual temperatures have had to tweak their programmes, either by starting much earlier in the day or after sunset, when the air is cooler. Alternative plans and friendlier refund conditions due to unsuitable weather conditions should also be a must by now.
While increasingly unusual weather conditions have yet to reshape travel seasons, this could well happen some day and is a reminder for destinations to get cracking now – if it isn’t already – to spread travel demand out across the year and into more locations.
