Characteristics of Flight Delays during Solar Flares

TL;DR

This study analyzes five years of flight data to reveal how solar flares increase departure delays, showing dependencies on time, latitude, and solar intensity, and highlighting the impact of solar activity on aviation operations.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis linking solar flare characteristics with flight delay patterns, revealing intrinsic mechanisms and dependencies.

Findings

Flight delays increase by 20.68% during solar flares.

Delays are more severe during dayside flares and at lower latitudes.

Flight delay times correlate with solar intensity and Solar Zenith Angle.

Abstract

Solar flare is one of the severest solar activities on the sun, and it has many important impacts on the near-earth space. It has been found that flight arrival delays will increase during solar flare. However, the detailed intrinsic mechanism of how solar flares influence the delays is still unknown. Based on 5-years huge amount of flight data, here we comprehensively analyze the flight departure delays during 57 solar flares. It is found that the averaged flight departure delay time during solar flares increased by 20.68% (7.67 min) compared to those during quiet periods. It is also shown that solar flare related flight delays reveal apparent time and latitude dependencies. Flight delays during dayside solar flares are more serious than those during nightside flares, and the longer (shorter) delays tend to occur in the lower (higher) latitude airport. Further analyses suggest that flight delay time and delay rate would be directly modulated by the solar intensity (soft X-ray flux) and the Solar Zenith Angle. For the first time, these results indicate that the communication interferences caused by solar flares will directly affect flight departure delay time and delay rate. This work also expands our conventional understandings to the impacts of solar flares on human society, and it could also provide us with brand new views to help prevent or cope with flight delays.