Airplanes could fly more times with the wind in favor

The idea seems elementary, but this is not how it happens. Airplanes circulate through highly controlled airspaces to prevent accidents from occurring between them, and none of them can go off their assigned route. And those air routes do not take into account the direction of the winds at all.

Airplanes that fly long distances (intercontinental flights) and remain flying for a long time are more affected by the winds encountered during the flight, and when the winds are in favor of their flight direction, they shorten the duration of the flight and consume less fuel, saving a lot of money for the company.

Airlines are always interested in flying with tailwinds to save fuel, and today they have the limitation of the air routes assigned to their flights to ensure their safety.

This is so because over the ocean you cannot control flights with radars, but that is about to change with the control of airplanes in flight using satellites.

If the control is by means of satellites, it is possible to know at all times where all the planes that fly in a certain airspace are located (even if they are in the middle of the ocean), and modifications in their route could be allowed to take advantage of the existing winds and flew in their favor.

I have seen an article about an information that appeared in the Environmental Research Letters in which scientists have analyzed 35,000 flights between London and New York, considering the existing winds in the flight zone.

If the flights had been controlled by satellites and the pilots had been able to slightly vary their flight routes based on the existing winds, they would have saved more than 2% of fuel and in some optimal cases up to 7%. That’s a lot of money.

The analyzed routes are shown in the previous photo.

This technical possibility is about to occur and will mean serious savings for aeronautical companies, even if it is not the solution to their current serious problems.

But whatever happens in aeronautics, and regardless of the type of fuel used during flights to pollute as little as possible, it will always be more than interesting to fly with the wind in your favor.