Severe turbulence dispatch planning for NAT flights

[ElNull]

Do your airlines have any specific rules or criteria for avoiding forecasted severe turbulence during dispatch? E.g, is there a maximum duration or a threshold where avoiding becomes mandatory?

I'm asking specifically in the context of large areas of forecasted severe turbulence over the NAT, where avoidance might come with a significant time and cost.

Of course, I understand safety always comes first, but I also know that in some cases, airlines may still plan through areas of forecasted severe turbulence under certain conditions. Just curious how others approach this operationally

Thanks

[blorgwinder]

Well why dont you share your proof of "how you know". Its either first hand or its anecdotal.. And if its first hand and you did fly thru why did you accept the routing??

[Check Airman]

I don't know if there's any written policy at my airline, but if the turbulence along the desired route is significant enough, they'll send us on a on a route that adds several hundred miles to the flightplan. The acceptable duration of turbulence seems to depend on the dispatcher. This only seems to happen on the way home

[Chesty Morgan]

I'll suck my teeth, go oooh, ahhh and ummm for a minute or two then phone Ops and tell them I want an alternative route which avoids XYZ...then put the kettle on and wait..

[FullWings]

I don’t think we have an actual policy, apart from flying the fastest/cheapest route. If there is a N-S band across the whole Atlantic at all levels, the only other option is to not fly that day and nobody I know does that. If I can see that by shifting a few tracks up or down then the worst can be avoided, I’ll consider that but my several decades of experience on the NAT tells me that there is a lot of chance involved and you could easily be making things worse rather than better.

With the advent of real-time turbulence reporting and display on an app, a significant amount of uncertainty has been removed and the surprise factor reduced, e.g. it is much less likely on the tracks to hit unforecast moderate/severe right in the middle of a meal service with the belts off, unless you’re in the first wave across. Anyway, as the saying goes, if you want to make an omelette, you've got to break some eggs...

[Amadis of Gaul]

Originally Posted by ElNull

Do your airlines have any specific rules or criteria for avoiding forecasted severe turbulence during dispatch?

Affirmative.

[Sailvi767]

My airline forbid dispatching into known severe turbulence. Any aircraft encountering severe turbulence also requires a logbook entry and maintenance inspection. The inspection can be lengthy. I do find many aircraft report moderate turbulence as severe.

Turbulence that causes large, abrupt
changes in altitude and/or attitude. It usually causes large variations in indicated airspeed. Aircraft may be
momentarily out of control. Report as Severe Turbulence.1

[moosepileit]

Last Alaskan Volcano moved the arrivals from the west into wave. Not a fun ride. Called 20 out asking for an inspection. The advanced health monitoring/AHM had already spit out the proper inspection cards and the g/time graphing at Mx's workstation.

No known or forecast severe is just a good starting point.

[ElNull]

Originally Posted by FullWings

I don’t think we have an actual policy, apart from flying the fastest/cheapest route. If there is a N-S band across the whole Atlantic at all levels, the only other option is to not fly that day and nobody I know does that. If I can see that by shifting a few tracks up or down then the worst can be avoided, I’ll consider that but my several decades of experience on the NAT tells me that there is a lot of chance involved and you could easily be making things worse rather than better.

With the advent of real-time turbulence reporting and display on an app, a significant amount of uncertainty has been removed and the surprise factor reduced, e.g. it is much less likely on the tracks to hit unforecast moderate/severe right in the middle of a meal service with the belts off, unless you’re in the first wave across. Anyway, as the saying goes, if you want to make an omelette, you've got to break some eggs...

What about real-time turbulence reporting apps that source their data from the IATA Turbulence Aware program? I'm curious if dispatchers actually rely on these real-time reports from aircrafts during flight planning and turbulence avoidance

I know these real-time reports (like in the FD Pro app) are time-limited… only reflecting the last 30 minutes, so I’m curious whether they’re considered useful at all for long-range planning