U.S. Heat Wave: Why The Heat Dome Could Create Hell For Air Travelers

Forbes Breaking News

On "Forbes Newsroom," Forbes reporter Suzanne Rowan Kelleher discussed her report detailing the impact of the heat wave on air travel.  READ MORE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2024/06/17/extreme-heat-flying-delays-cancellations/  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript   Stay Connected Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00Hi, everyone. I'm Maggie McGrath for Forbes Breaking News. Much of the U.S. is in a heat

00:07wave this week, and there could be serious ramifications for air travelers. Here to explain

00:13more is Suzanne Kelleher, one of my colleagues here at Forbes. She's a staff writer who covers

00:17travel and trends and news for us. Suzanne, thanks for joining.

00:22Thanks for having me.

00:24So you have a story. I love this headline. I love it as a reader. I dislike it as a traveler.

00:29Why this week could be hell for air travelers. So let's just start with the obvious why.

00:35Why is this week going to be so bad for air travel?

00:38Well, weather patterns can wreak just chaos with the air travel system in the United States.

00:47So this week, we have a heat dome over much of the Midwest and the Northeast, triple-digit

00:56temperatures. And what that does is it makes it harder for planes to take off because the

01:05air molecules are less dense. It takes the plane more energy to actually get the thrust.

01:12So what ends up happening is that in areas where there might be something like a shorter

01:17runway or a mountain or maybe a runway that takes up over the ocean, they might not have

01:24enough room. So that can lead to delays and it can lead to airlines having to bump passengers

01:31off of flights to get the weight down off planes.

01:34OK, I want to break this down because I am not a scientist and you did have a source

01:39who told you that with extreme heat, the runway effectively becomes too short.

01:44So just to make sure we're all super clear on that, it's basically...

01:49Go ahead.

01:50It's not everywhere. It's in places like, he used the example of Phoenix, right?

01:55So Phoenix, obviously in Arizona, gets super hot.

01:58It's surrounded by mountains.

02:00So you can't just lengthen a runway.

02:03And if it gets to a certain temperature and every plane make and model is different, every

02:10runway is a different length.

02:11There's no kind of standard runway length.

02:14So in some parts of the country, what ends up happening is it's too hot for the planes to

02:20actually take off. They don't have enough runway.

02:22That's kind of the extreme.

02:24But it's much more common that they just say, well, we just need to reduce our payload.

02:30We need to either get rid of passengers.

02:32That means, you know, they offered a bump.

02:35They might give you a credit and they say that we need, you know, volunteers, 10 passengers

02:40to get off the plane with their bags.

02:43But that delays flights too, right?

02:45So the major problem that potentially travelers will encounter are delays.

02:53It just is something that they have to kind of wiggle around a little bit more.

02:58And then the second issue is that when you have a very hot day and you have delays, there's

03:06a bigger chance that you'll end up with your plane stuck on the tarmac for hopefully not

03:12very long while you're waiting to go out and take off.

03:15But sometimes delays cause these traffic jams and you have a plane on the tarmac, sometimes

03:21for an hour, sometimes two hours.

03:24At three hours, they need to let you off because there's no way there's no air conditioning.

03:30There's no way of getting air into the plane.

03:33So that can be quite uncomfortable, too, if that happens.

03:39I've been there, although not for three hours.

03:42And I think the record or at least a record was last year, a plane sat for seven hours

03:47at Newark.

03:48Is that correct?

03:49Right.

03:50And that that was extreme.

03:52But the same month, last July, a different that was a United flight at Newark.

03:57There's a Delta flight, Las Vegas, and one hundred and eleven degrees set for four hours.

04:04People were vomiting.

04:05People were passing out.

04:07Two people went to the hospital.

04:10So, I mean, that's these are extremes, you know, I fingers crossed that's not going to

04:15happen during this week.

04:17But it is you know, it's just an uncomfortable it can be uncomfortable even if you're there

04:23an hour or forty five minutes waiting to take off with no air conditioning.

04:28Planes don't have a way the way the planes cool off their cooling system.

04:33They need to be in the air.

04:35And so, you know, when you're boarding the plane and you're still connected to the gate,

04:40they have a tube that goes into the plane blowing cold air in.

04:43It's all very comfortable.

04:45Once they detach from that tube, there's no real there's no way for a plane to to cool

04:53itself down until it gets in the air.

04:55Obviously, once it's at 30, 40 thousand feet, the air temperature outside, it's still bringing

05:01in air from outside.

05:04That's how it works.

05:05And the air temperature is subzero at that point.

05:08So the problem then it's a matter of heating up the air to make it comfortable.

05:14But while they're either taxiing on the runway or once you land, sometimes, too, you have

05:19the same thing.

05:21I've I've had this happen.

05:22I'm sure everybody's had it happen where your plane lands and then you wait.

05:27And if the temperatures are super hot, that that can get uncomfortable.

05:32It's really interesting that you talk about the the air and the ability to cool the plane.

05:36So you essentially are describing a situation where it is so hot on the ground that the

05:42planes need more thrust to get off the ground.

05:45So certain runways, certain planes may not be able to get off the ground.

05:49But in the meantime, they need to be able to get off the ground in order to kickstart

05:53the AC.

05:54It's it's oh, my goodness.

05:57What's really interesting is as a traveler, I always know to look out for rainstorms and

06:03thunderstorms.

06:04You know, if I have any control over my schedule, I look at the long range forecast or as long

06:09as it's available when I'm booking and I try to plan around that.

06:13But what you're saying is effectively that travelers should be looking at temperatures,

06:17too, as they're considering their travel.

06:19Well, all air.

06:21I mean, there is a tip that I give everybody and people don't like it, but all year long.

06:27But especially in very hot weather, in thunderstorm weather, hurricane season, in the winter,

06:34when you're flying, you know, for your ski vacation, take the first flight.

06:38If you can possibly get on the very first flight, take the first flight at five thirty

06:43in the morning or six in the morning, get on that flight, because the problems just

06:48get worse as the day goes on.

06:50And that's because of the way the airlines use their planes.

06:53They don't just, you know, say let's say you have a situation where one plane is flying

06:59from Miami to Charlotte and then it's going to go from Charlotte to Chicago and then it's

07:04going to go from Chicago to Dallas all in the same day.

07:09Let's say the first flight gets off fine and that second flight is delayed.

07:13Well, guess what?

07:15The third flight's delayed and the fourth flight's delayed.

07:17So the longer you wait in the day, the more chance you have of that domino effect bumping

07:23into your flight.

07:25And that is particularly true in places.

07:28The expert that I spoke to, Dr. Bob Thomas at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in

07:35Daytona, he was saying, you know, he's in Florida and they have thunderstorms in the

07:40summer every afternoon.

07:42So, you know, I mean, just the odds of you running into trouble in flying in the afternoon

07:49out of Florida is higher than if you flew out in the morning.

07:53So that's one tip I always give, just that if you're worried about delays, if you really

07:58need to get somewhere, don't take an afternoon flight because you're kind of rolling the

08:03dice.

08:05And then like you, you're smart to track the weather.

08:11There's an app I love called FlightAware and they have a feature called Find My Plane.

08:17And that can tell you about the situation I just described, where let's say you're,

08:23you're supposed to be on the Chicago to Dallas flight.

08:27You can see, uh-oh, that flight made it to Charlotte and then was delayed.

08:33So you know ahead of time that there's a problem.

08:36You might be able to get on a different flight, change your plans.

08:40You know, you can kind of, you have a little bit of a crystal ball that you can anticipate

08:47that there's trouble ahead and maybe, you know, sort yourself out before it even gets

08:54to you.

08:56Let's say that one more time.

08:57Is that Find My Flight or FlightAware or both?

09:00The app is called FlightAware, but the feature is called Find My Flight.

09:06And you basically plug in your, you know, your details of your flight, your flight number,

09:11and it will just tell you where the plane is, right?

09:13It basically finds the plane.

09:17That's kind of more important, right?

09:19Like, so even before the airline will alert you that the flight is going to be delayed,

09:24you can see on this app that there's a good chance that it's not going to get there on time.

09:30And I mean, hopefully you can make some adjustment to your plans.

09:35Technology is a little faster with the information than the airlines are.

09:38I've experienced that myself.

09:40I'm sure a lot of people watching have.

09:42Now of course, we're Forbes.

09:43We love our numbers.

09:44Suzanne, I have to ask you, how many flight delays or cancellations have we already seen

09:48this week?

09:49It's already quite hot here in New York.

09:51The week is just beginning.

09:52What do we need to know about the flights that have been canceled or delayed thus far?

09:57So yesterday I was writing the piece, you know, in the morning.

10:03And during the time I was writing the piece, I could see the delays starting to crank up

10:08from, you know, 1,200 to 1,400 to 2,000.

10:14It was 2,500 when I filed the story.

10:17And then by the end of the day, it was 7,000 delays, right?

10:20So as the day goes, that's my point I was making before, as the day goes on, it rises.

10:27Today, a little bit better.

10:30We're at 3 o'clock.

10:32And just before I got on with you, I saw that we were about 2,100 delays so far.

10:38And so it's less, but by the end of the day, it's going to be, you know, we could end up

10:44at 5,500, 6,000, something like that.

10:48So it, and it matters, you know, you know, Southwest already by 3 o'clock had 454 delays.

10:58American had 302, United had 238.

11:01So I mean, they, you know, it's a snowball kind of effect.

11:07You should just expect, I think if you're flying, say, in the afternoon,

11:11just travel with your patients.

11:13Know that, you know, they're always going to put safety first.

11:17So they're not going to take off until it's safe.

11:20If they ask for people to be bumped, that's because they need to get less weight on the plane.

11:28And they know what they're doing.

11:30So hopefully people will volunteer and just do that.

11:34But, you know, it's, it's just a fact of summer travel.

11:38It gets, it seems to get worse every summer.

11:41We are in hurricane season right now.

11:43We have thunderstorms all over the place and we're in a heat wave.

11:48So, you know.

11:50I was going to ask, we've been speaking with the folks at AccuWeather

11:53who are predicting a number of heat waves this summer.

11:57What's your expectation for air travel for the summer as a whole?

12:02Is it just going to be a terrible summer for the airports?

12:06Well, I mean, I'm a little bit sympathetic to airlines when it's weather induced

12:11because they really, they can't do anything about that, right?

12:15And they, I think, usually handle these situations pretty well.

12:20We're not seeing the airline-inflicted problems that we did from a couple of years ago

12:28and this year or last year because of things like, you know, shortages

12:34and, you know, there weren't enough pilots,

12:36there weren't enough some of the parts, the planes, et cetera.

12:39A lot of those issues have been sorted out mostly.

12:42So it's really weather, right?

12:45And I mean, one thing I would say is, you know,

12:49don't fly to the Caribbean in the middle of September.

12:51That's the peak hurricane season, you know?

12:54I mean, you can kind of guess.

12:59But the problem is that even if your locality, you go outside and you say,

13:06it's a beautiful day and the temperature is a mild 73,

13:11that doesn't really matter because like I said before, everything is connected.

13:15So if there's a problem in Miami, that could affect your flight eventually.

13:20If you have an afternoon flight out of Seattle, you have perfect weather,

13:24but your plane didn't have perfect weather.

13:30I suppose you don't have a crystal ball and can tell me if an 8.30 a.m.

13:34flight on Sunday out of JFK will be safe.

13:38I think it's going to be pretty OK because it's supposed to,

13:41the weather's supposed to break, I think, Friday.

13:44And you're taking a morning flight, so that's all good.

13:48So I think you're in good shape.

13:51Following best practices, always, always, always morning flights.

13:55Suzanne Kelleher, thank you so much for coming on and explaining all of this to us.

13:59We really appreciate it.

14:02Thank you.

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