ARESEARCH WORK

ON

THE EFFECTS OF WEATHER HAZARDS ON AVIATION FLIGHT SCHEDULES AND

OPERATIONSBY

AKANDE SAMUEL OLUMIDECentre for Space Research and Applications

FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, AKUREONDO STATE, NIGERIAolusamakande@yahoo.com

+234-7032320763

INTRODUCTIONAviation plays a major role in today’s social and

economic scenarios. It offers a quick, reliable and safe way of taking

people to their destination, for business reasons, holidays or family visits.

Even after a century of flight, weather is still the factor most likely to result in accidents with fatalities.

An increasing demand for air travel is the first challenge to the future of air transport.

FLIGHT DELAYS A flight delay is a delay in which an airline

flight takes off and/or lands later than its scheduled time. A flight is considered delayed when it is 15 minutes later than its scheduled time. (Hauke et al, 2001)

Occasional delays are part of air travel today. Much as we dislike delays, they are yet unavoidable, even in the well-run airlines.

CAUSES Maintenance problems Crew problems Aircraft cleaning Baggage loading Fueling Extreme weather Congestion in air traffic Security issues

STATEMENT OF PROBLEMAviation weather hazards do not only unleash its impact on

aircrafts in flights but also affects those packed at the Aerodromes.

Therefore, a good knowledge of this subject matter becomes very important to Aircraft operators, pilots and flight crew members

Should the safety of lives and properties be ensured and risks reduced to the barest minimum.

JUSTIFICATION The great increase in air traffic has led to a large increase in the

demand for airport capacity. Also, the months of May to October are months of the rainy

season, characterized by severe thunderstorms and line squalls and its attendant turbulence, microbursts and lighting.

AIM AND OBJECTIVESAIMTo examine the various weather hazards that affect

the effective flight operation in the aviation industry.

OBJECTIVESo study the weather approach to problems of flight

delays and cancellation. To analyse the weather parameters that likely affects

the smooth flight operations. To see if by human efforts, air crashes due to natural

(weather) hazards such as thunderstorms, wind shear, precipitation can be mitigated.

STUDY AREA The study area for this report is the Murtala

Mohammed International Airport , Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria. It lies between latitude 6021I11II N and longitude 3023I44II E. It is the busiest airport in Nigeria.

It is the major airport serving the city of Lagos, Southwestern Nigeria and the entire nation, with an average of 300 aircraft movements a day. It caters for more than 5 million a year.

Lagos state is a coastal state bounded to the south by the Atlantic Ocean and the other sides by neighboring states.

YearTotal Passengers

% Increase

freight (tons)

Total Aircraft Movements

2003 3362464 51826 62439

2004 3576189 6 89496 67208

2005 3817338 6.3 63807 70893

2006 3848757 0.8 83598 74650

2007 4162424 7.5 81537

2008 5136920 23.4 77472

2009 5644572 9.9 84588

2010 6273454 11.1 96919

2011 6748290 7.6 105215

LITERATURE REVIEW• Flight delay is a complex phenomenon, because it can be

due to problems at the origin airport, at the destination airport, or during airborne.

• Flight schedules are often subjected to irregularity. Due to the tight connection among airlines resources, delays could dramatically propagate over time and space unless the proper recovery actions are taken. (Wu, 2005).

• In addition, there are general arrival and departure delays. This usually indicates that arrival traffic is doing airborne holding or departing traffic is experiencing longer than normal taxi times or holding at the gate. These could be due to a number of reasons, including thunderstorms in the area, a high departure demand, or a runway change. (Aisling and Kenneth, 1999).

WEATHER HAZARDS ON FLIGHT OPERATIONSREDUCED (POOR) VISIBILITY

Fog It forms over land usually under clear

skies and light winds typically after midnight and peaks early in the morning. After sunrise, the fog begins to burn off from the edges over land.

Precipitation Rain can reduce visibility; however,

the restriction is seldom less than one mile other than in the heaviest showers beneath cumulonimbus clouds. Drizzle, because of the greater number of drops in each volume of air, is usually more effective than rain at reducing the visibility, especially when accompanied by fog.

Wind Shear Wind shear is a change in wind direction and/or

wind speed over the distance between two points.

If the points are in a vertical direction then it is called vertical shear, if they are in a horizontal direction than it is called horizontal shear.

In the aviation world, the major concern is how abruptly the change occurs.

Depending on the aircraft type, it may take a significant time to correct the situation, placing the aircraft in peril, particularly during takeoff and landing.

Turbulence Turbulence is the direct result of wind shear. The

stronger the shear the greater the tendency for the laminar flow of the air to break down into eddies resulting in turbulence.

CONSEQUENCES OF WEATHER HAZARDS

DATA AND METHODOLOGYDATA USED

The data collected for the use of the study is known as Daily Flight Schedule Report.

This data was collected from flight operations data unit of AIR NIGERIA AIRWAYS, ikeja, Lagos State. The data ranges between May-October 2011 and May-October 2012.

The meteorological data used were collected from the Nigeria Meteorological Agency, Ikeja office, Lagos.

METHODOLOGY The Histograms were plotted for the

data from the divisions in Aircraft operations. This is to show the frequent occurrence of factors responsible for the problems of flight operations.

Also, line graphs, showing the relationship between some weather parameters(rainfall, windspeed, and thunderstorm) that also contributes to problems of flight operations.

The monthly means of these parameters were used for the analysis for the period of my stay on Industrial Training (May-October).

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

14.29

9.89

4.4

2.23.3

0

3.32.2

0

9.8910.99

12.0910.99

13.19

3.3

Graph of Percentage Delays from Divisions in Aircraft Operations (MAY)

2011

2012

Divisions in Aircraft Operations

Perc

enta

ge o

f Del

ays

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

1816.16

6.06

8.08

0

2.023.03

4.04 4.04

0

5.05

10.1

15.15

8.08

14.14

4.04

Graph of Percentage Delays from Divisions in Aircraft Operations (JUNE)

20112012

Divisions in Aircraft Operations

Perc

enta

ge o

f Del

ays

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

7.69

13.19

8.79

1.10 0

7.69

0 0

5.49

10.99

18.68

13.19

9.89

3.3

Graph of Percentage Delays from Divisions in Aircraft Operations (JULY)

2011

2012

Divisions in Aircraft Operations

Perc

enta

ge o

f Del

ays

02468

101214161820

7.94

10.32

6.35

01.59

0

2.38

01.59

5.56

13.49

18.25

15.8714.29

2.38

Graph of Percentage Delays from Divisions in Aircraft Operations(AUGUST)

20112012

Divisions in Aircraft Operations

Perc

enta

ge o

f Del

ays

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

9.2

15.7

6.4

3.49

0 0

6.98

1.74 1.50

14.53

9.65

11.63

8.14

11.05

Graph of Percentage Delays from Divisions in Aircraft Operations (SEPT)

20112012

Divisions in Aircraft Operations

Perc

enta

ge o

f Del

ays

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

14.29

10.39

2.163.46

2.6

0

1.73

5.196.49 6.49

11.69

9.96

12.99

6.935.63

Graph of Percentage Delays from Divisions in Aircraft Operations (OCT.)

2011

2012

Divisions in Aircraft Operations

Perc

enta

ge o

f Del

ays

MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT110

120

130

140

150

160

170

180

190

200

210

14

14.5

15

15.5

16

16.5

17

17.5

18

18.5

19

Line Graph of Variation between Thunderstorm and Rainfall (2011)

RR Th

RAIN

FALL

(mm

)

MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT120

130

140

150

160

170

180

190

200

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

Line Graph of Variation between Thunderstorm and Rainfall (2012)

RRTh

RAIN

FALL

(mm

)

MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT2.7

2.75

2.8

2.85

2.9

2.95

3

3.05

3.1

3.15

14

14.5

15

15.5

16

16.5

17

17.5

18

18.5

19

Line Graph of Variation between Thunderstorm and Windspeed (2011)

WindTh

WIN

D SP

EED

(m/s

)

MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT2.5

2.6

2.7

2.8

2.9

3

3.1

14.5

15.5

16.5

17.5

18.5

19.5

20.5

21.5

Line Graph of Variation between Thunderstorm and Windspeed (2012)

WindTh

WIN

D S

PEED

(m/s

)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The graphs 1-6 which shows the number of delays with their

respective delay reasons, there were some delay reasons that had low number of delays while some has a high number of delays.

The months of July and August, 2012 recorded the highest percentage delays due to weather with amounting to 18.68% and 18.25% respectively.

Thus, there was an upward trend in the percentage which implies that there were delays and flight operation problems due to bad weather.

The Graphs 7-10 show the weather effects on delays caused by thunderstorms, wind speed and rainfall which are the weather variables considered.

These then show that in most cases, an increase in thunderstorm occurrence leads to an increase in the rainfall occurrence (as well as rainfall amount). Also, an increase in the win speed also corresponds to an increase in the thunderstorms

CONCLUSIONFrom May to October, the percentage and the numbers

of delays due to weather hazards show that the issue of delays due to weather hazards is to be taken with utmost seriousness.

In conclusion, weather hazards are one of the significant factors of flight operations, therefore pilots and aviation managers needs to have the knowledge of weather hazards integrated into flight operational guidelines.

RECOMMENDATION

NIMET should be issuing a comprehensive daily weather report before the daily flight scheduled are been planned.

The Government should embark on projects to improve weather study and acquire weather equipment that would ensure that pilots are kept abreast of weather information at any time.

The Government should provide the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) the installation of MeteoSat Second Generation (MSG) ground receiver; installation of thunderstorm detectors; construction of Weather Forecasting and Climate research Centre.

Also the construction as procurement and installation of Doppler Weather Radars (DWR); installation of low-level wind shear alert system (LLWAS) at the two wings of the airports; procurement and installation of Upper Air sounding equipment.

THANKYOU