Is it safer to fly in winter or summer?

First, to clarify: Aircraft may perform better in cold weather, but that doesn't necessarily mean safer. The potential for icing and its affect on lift and handling is a dangerous threat in freezing temperatures. But icing aside, cold air can help a plane take off and fly more efficiently.



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Heavy snow or blizzards can make landing and taking off too dangerous, while lightning storms can be very hazardous to any aircraft. Extreme heat can also interfere with an aircraft's performance, so in hotter parts of the world, extreme temperatures can cause significant delays.

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Nighttime or morning flights are statistically better for turbulence, compared to those in the day.

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Inclement weather is categorized as thunderstorms, snowstorms, wind shear, icing, and fog. Any inclement weather is by far the most hazardous. This is the type of weather that causes the most cancellations and delays, not just rain.

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When an aircraft experiences turbulence, the plane can drop or change altitude suddenly. This is why pilots always caution passengers to buckle up and stay seated when they are experiencing flight turbulence. The sudden movements put passengers at risk.

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DENVER (CBS4) – Colorado and the Rocky Mountains are among the worst areas for turbulence in the United States. It's a problem that injures dozens of passengers and crew members nationwide every year.

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Top 10 safest airlines to fly on right now
  • Delta Airlines. Major crashes in the last 50 years: 7. ...
  • American Airlines. Major crashes in the last 50 years: 14. ...
  • International: Qatar Airways. Major crashes in the last 50 years: 0. ...
  • International: Etihad Airways. Major crashes since operations started: 0.


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When it comes to the safety of flights, the length of the flight ultimately has little to do with safety. The safety of each flight is based on a variety of different factors, such as the aircraft type, the proficiency of the crew, and weather conditions.

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There is no single maximum wind speed that cancels flights, as it depends on the direction of wind and phase of flight. A crosswind above about 40mph and a tailwind above 10mph can start to cause problems and stop commercial jets from taking off and landing.

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What happens when en route flights encounter thunderstorms? Jet aircraft can safely fly over thunderstorms only if their flight altitude is well above the turbulent cloud tops. The most intense and turbulent storms are often the tallest storms, so en route flights always seek to go around them.

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Visual Illusions The lack of visual cues can lead pilots to lose any sense of depth perception. There is often the temptation to 'duck under' the correct approach path, making the airplane lower than it should be.

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Early morning on-time performance is all thanks to the thin air traffic. As Forbes explained, airspace is less likely to be crowded in the morning, as all the previous days' flights have long landed.

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Turbulence, associated with thunderstorms, can be extremely hazardous, having the potential to cause overstressing of the aircraft or loss of control. Thunderstorm vertical currents may be strong enough to displace an aircraft up or down vertically as much as 2000 to 6000 feet.

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Severe turbulence can cause a plane to drop so suddenly that pilots temporarily lose control. But, again, that's not enough to crash the plane. That's not to say it's never happened. In 1966, human error and turbulence combined to bring a plane down over Mount Fuji.

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While turbulence can feel scary, airplanes are designed to withstand massive amounts of it. A plane cannot be flipped upside-down, thrown into a tailspin, or otherwise flung from the sky by even the mightiest gust or air pocket, wrote pilot Patrick Smith on his site, AskThePilot.com.

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