Flying to Europe with Active Hurricanes in North Atlantic

[dianajo67]

I’m supposed to be flying JFK-Rome this weekend for a cruise and a little concerned about the current Hurricane paths.  While they won’t be impacting land, they will be pretty far north in the Atlantic by Saturday night.  Does anyone have any experience traveling over the Atlantic in those conditions?  Do the airlines cancel?  Fly above?  Fly over?  I tried googling and it seems articles are mostly concerned with hurricanes that are going to impact airports and not mid-ocean conditions.  Of course, we have to be ready for a cancellation, but I’d like a little reassurance that that might not happen if any pilots out there want to chime in!

 

I understand trip insurance etc. and my concern is not financial.  Was more interested in what airlines are likely to do.  I’m more concerned about all the various tours/train tickets etc. i have scheduled the first day or two I’m in Italy.  Will not have enough days on the ground to reschedule some of them.  Thanks.

[pretzlaff]

Fly around. 

[ARandomTraveler]

Hmmm. I'm flying to Europe as well (for a land vacation not a cruise). I hadn't even though about it. I would assume they'd just fly higher in the sky, or take a slightly different, less direct flight route to avoid any bad sky weather if needed. I wouldn't be too worried about it. 

[smokeybandit]

Just fly right over top unless it's a major hurricane which reaches into the cruising altitudes, then fly around

[exm]

As long as there's no storm at the departure or arrival port, you'll be find. Usually they fly above most storms, or alter the flight path.

[mo&fran]

The routes from North America to Europe follow the great circle route, which is the shortest route on a globe.  For example, go to web site Flightradar24 , spool out till you see the Atlantic ocean from  America to Europe , and will see the tracks of the flights.

It is best viewed in the evening, the majority of east bound flights are over night flights so they will be landing in the morning  of the next day.

[mo&fran]

CC glitch resulted in double post.

Edited September 6, 2022 by mo&fran

[dianajo67]

4 minutes ago, mo&fran said:

The routes from North America to Europe follow the great circle route, which is the shortest route on a globe.  For example, go to web site Flightradar24 , spool out till you see the Atlantic ocean from  America to Europe , and will see the tracks of the flights.

It is best viewed in the evening, the majority of east bound flights are over night flights so they will be landing in the morning  of the next day.

Flightradar24 is a great site!  Thank you! 

[smokeybandit]

11 minutes ago, mo&fran said:

The routes from North America to Europe follow the great circle route, which is the shortest route on a globe

 

That's not necessarily true

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Tracks

[2inSETexas]

1 hour ago, mo&fran said:

The routes from North America to Europe follow the great circle route, which is the shortest route on a globe.  For example, go to web site Flightradar24 , spool out till you see the Atlantic ocean from  America to Europe , and will see the tracks of the flights.

It is best viewed in the evening, the majority of east bound flights are over night flights so they will be landing in the morning  of the next day.

Yes, this is true. I have flown often to Europe for business and personal trips. I have never been on a flight that didn’t follow what appears to be a curved route either eastbound or westbound. If this route could be viewed from directly above it would appear to be mostly a straight line, with a few variations - it only seems curved because of the our globe.

 

The one time that our flight had a significant departure from this (and this is where it applies to the OP’s question) was a flight from Houston to Paris during a time of heavy storms across Tennessee and the northern parts of the southern states. In this case, our flight headed straight across the Gulf of Mexico as if flying to Florida. Once we were over Jacksonville, FL, it was at this point the flight began the “circle route” toward Europe. We diverted south of the storm system until past then began the more direct route to Paris. We arrived a bit past expected arrival time, but not unreasonably so.

Edited September 6, 2022 by 2inSETexas

[dianajo67]

55 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

 

That's not necessarily true

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Tracks

Before I posted, I had been monitoring the current flight from FCO - JFK today as well as over the past few days.  Todays route is significantly farther north than previous days.  My concern was that it looked like the current storms (Earl and Danielle) would be so far north across the entire Atlantic by Saturday, that the airlines were going to run out of space North of the storms.  I’m probably wrong to be concerned at all (frequently am), but figured I’d ask.  I know we have some airline pilots on here.  I’m aware that flights will occasionally fly above a storm if it’s low enough, but that’s not preferred over the ocean as there aren’t a lot of exit strategies if there are problems.  Because JFK is on the Northeast coast, it doesn’t give the airlines as much leeway as if the airport was further west.  Appreciate all who responded!

[drjohn4]

The winds and storms of a hurricane are usually only a significant factor if they are near where your flight takes off or lands.  Normal jet stream winds are hurricane force and planes fly in them at cruising altitude all the time.  A hurricane along your route would at worse cause a minor delay if they have to fly around some particularly large thunderstorms that are a part of the hurricane.  I flew over one once and didn't even notice. The captain did come out to make an announcement to all the passengers before we left to reassure everyone that it was not a problem.

[dianajo67]

1 hour ago, drjohn4 said:

The winds and storms of a hurricane are usually only a significant factor if they are near where your flight takes off or lands.  Normal jet stream winds are hurricane force and planes fly in them at cruising altitude all the time.  A hurricane along your route would at worse cause a minor delay if they have to fly around some particularly large thunderstorms that are a part of the hurricane.  I flew over one once and didn't even notice. The captain did come out to make an announcement to all the passengers before we left to reassure everyone that it was not a problem.

Perfect!  Thanks!  Anything can happen with the airlines these days…but I feel a bit reassured.  Funny thing…my hubby is a retired operator who flew in fighters for years out of England and Alaska.  We have facebook friends who are retired military who went to the airlines!  Never entered my mind to just ask one of them.  Granted, I hadn’t had my coffee yet this morning when I decided to ask!  Just keeping my fingers crossed at this point!