When the Weatherman Is in the Cockpit

As a storm predicted to deliver freezing rain and ice neared Dallas last November, airlines began canceling hundreds of flights. Not Southwest Airlines. Armed with a new generation of sensors on 87 of its planes measuring moisture in the air, the airline had better data than the U.S. government’s twice-a-day weather balloon system. Its weather team knew there would be no ice storm hazard—and its planes could fly. “We saw it wasn’t going to happen here,” says Rick Curtis, Southwest’s chief meteorologist. “It was too warm, and there were some dry layers in places in the atmosphere.”

The prediction of storms and atmospheric conditions such as turbulence is undergoing a revolution that has the potential to trim airline delays, cut costs, and reduce in-flight injuries. Late flights cost airlines as much as $8 billion a year, so even incremental declines in delay rates are important.