Benefits of Aviation Weather Services: A Review of International Literature

Abstract

This paper presents a summary of the international literature published on the benefits of aviation weather services. Aviation operations are highly sensitive to weather conditions. Information on weather conditions helps meteorologists, pilots, navigators, airline companies and businesses to ensure safe flights and save money by reducing some of the stringent requirements related to carrying extra fuel loads. The development of constantly updated flight plans with respect to available weather information regarding changing wind and general weather conditions can enable aircraft to use fuel more efficiently and navigate their planes in safer environments that avoid turbulence and make air flights comfortable to the travelling public. The summary literature presented in this paper illustrates the importance of the work of meteorologists in the production of relevant information and data that are accessible to pilots and navigators. The pooling of meteorological information, data and other resources by member countries of the World Meteorological Organisation represents a classic case of international cooperation that has ensured relatively safe and comfortable air flights across the world since the era of international air travel in the 20 th Century speeding up the process of the more historically-recent globalisation.

The Value of Surface-based Meteorological Observation Data

“…Estimated fuel savings due to weather routing can be as high as 30% on short-range flights, considering the impact of convective weather and the resultant need for avoidance of holding patterns and/or deviations (Anaman 2017). Fuel consumption of the global aviation industry is estimated to have cost about US$188 billion in 2019 (IATA 2019), and the International Energy Agency reports better flight routing could cut fuel consumption by as much as 10% 14 .…”

Evaluation of Public Weather Services by Users in the Formal Services Sector in Accra, Ghana

“…Briefly, the CVM creates an artificial hypothetical market and through a random-based scientific survey which requests respondents to state the maximum amount of money that they are willing to pay for a particular rather than be without that good or the minimum amount of compensation that they would like to receive for a reduced quality of a resource. CVM studies have been conducted widely around the world and for meteorological services, there have been several studies conducted for valuation of various public weather services [31] [34] [40]- [45]. The strengths and weaknesses of the CVM are discussed extensively by Asafu-Adjaye [30].…”

The impact of weather forecast accuracy on the economic value of weather-sensitive industries

“…Teisberg (2005) suggests that 24-hour temperature forecasts could save U.S. generators $166 million annually 7 . In air transport, Anaman (2017) suggests that aircraft can save 30% of fuel on short flights based on weather forecasts 8 . Gerbet et al (2016) estimate that full digitalization of non-residential buildings by 2025, coupled with better utilization of weather information, could result in global annual cost savings of $0.7 trillion to $1.2 trillion in engineering and construction 9 .…”