Impact of weather conditions on flights and how airlines use it to cover up

If you have just been told that your flight has been delayed or cancelled, we can almost guarantee that it is because one of these reasons – airline negligence, technical issue or weather conditions. Even though there is a common misconception that the latter is the most popular cause of flight disruption, according to the US department of transportation, only 30% of all delays are caused by weather. As the experts explain – the misconception is mostly formed by the manipulations of the airline.

Weather conditions in aviation is one of the most important factors – the aircraft can slide of the runway due to strong lateral winds, maintaining a necessary take-off speed may be impossible due to heavy rain, while blistering cold could not be the environment where all aircraft systems perform the best. In total, according to the stats, weather conditions are the third most popular (13%) cause of aviation incidents after human error (56%) and technical issues (17%).

Although hundreds of flights are delayed or cancelled around the world due to weather conditions, industry specialists note that airlines often play this sensitive card to try and divert the responsibility for the delayed or cancelled flight.

“In reality, 50% of all flights arriving late to their destination are late due to airline fault – ineffective work by employees, delays, inefficient fueling schedule and similar reasons. Nevertheless, if there’s even a slightest possible reason (rain or snow outside), airline employees will jump to conclusion that the delay or cancellation is due to weather conditions right away, aiming to avoid paying out a proper compensation to the stranded passengers,” comments the CEO of global platform www.skycop.com Marius Stonkus. “We receive numerous claims from the deceived passengers – there are special systems in place to check if the flight conditions really were the main cause of the incident.”

SKYCOP is a company, standing up for passengers and their rights in a fight against airline misbehavior towards flight refunds. Company experts are often faced with claims that were previously rejected by the airline declaring weather conditions as the main cause. According to the data collected by SKYCOP, over 95% of claims submitted independently are rejected by carriers.