Eddie Sheerr, NTV meteorologist based in St. John's, Newfoundland, visited System Operations Control, the company’s nerve centre, to learn firsthand how the airline manages weather. The team behind in-flight crew play a crucial role in safety, and in his exclusive television feature, Eddie explains how a weather impacts travel.
Air Canada’s Kevin O’Connor, Vice President, System Operations Control at Air Canada, explained the logistics to Sheerr: “It is very complex. And there are many challenges. A lot of customers, a lot of passengers may not see some of those challenges. It has anything to do with airport curfews as airplanes can’t always land at certain times of the day. The most impactful thing to daily operations is the weather.”
Rod Stone, Director of Flight Dispatch, is mindful of changing weather to manage weight and balance.
“We generally look 5 to 6 days out for the weather. Quite often we’re watching a system before it even develops. Winds impact us, snow, thunderstorms. Each season brings its own challenges. In today’s world we can, in some airports, like St. John’s that has a Category 3 Instrument Landing System, we can land hands off. But for a number of the stations we still fly into the pilots are intimately involved. We can only land when they have visual references,” Stone said.
