IATA Inaugurates Platform for Airlines to Monitor Turbulence

• IATA Inaugurates Platform for Airlines to Monitor Turbulence

The International Air Transport Association has inaugurated a Turbulence Aware data resource to help airlines avoid turbulence when planning routes.

IATA, a global body for airlines, said on Wednesday that the Turbulence Aware platform would improve airlines’ ability to forecast and avoid turbulence by pooling and sharing turbulence data generated by participating airlines.

It added that before now, airlines relied on pilot reports and weather advisories to mitigate the impact of turbulence on their operations.

“These tools, while effective, have limitations due to the fragmentation of the data sources, inconsistencies in the level and quality of information available, and the locational imprecision and the subjectivity of the observations. For example, there is no standardised scale for the severity of turbulence that a pilot may report other than a light, moderate or severe scale, which becomes very subjective among different-sized aircraft and pilot experience,” the association said in a statement.

It explained that the Turbulence Aware platform would also improve on the industry’s capabilities by collecting data from multiple contributing airlines, followed by a rigorous quality control.

According to the IATA, the data will then be consolidated into a single, anonymised, objective source database which is accessible to participants, and turned into actionable information when fed into an airline’s dispatch or airborne alerting systems.

The association said the result would be the first global, real-time, detailed and objective information for pilots and operations’ professionals to manage turbulence.

The IATA’s Director -General and Chief Executive Officer, Alexandre de Juniac, said Turbulence Aware was a great example of the potential for digital transformation in the airline industry.

He stated that the airline industry had always cooperated on safety, which remained its number one priority.