Meet our meteorologists – why watching weather is serious business at Qantas

Published on 5th October 2023 at 8:21

It might be a sunny day where you are right now, but chances are that somewhere on the Qantas network a storm is brewing.

Luckily there’s a team of dedicated in-house Qantas meteorologists who are on the look-out 24/7 for anything from a tropical storm to an erupting volcano.

The meteorologists sit within Qantas’ Integrated Operations Centre (IOC). So when weather strikes (or a volcano erupts), everyone in the IOC can quickly jump into action.

The IOC will look at how we can manage flying safely around the weather, what impacts that may have on landing rates, flight times, fuel use and crewing, and – of course – what it means for passengers.

But it’s not just the big storms that can cause a busy day in the IOC. High winds in Sydney means the number of aircraft that can land and take off each hour is cut by up to half, which can cause delays right across our network.

Whatever the weather, customers can be confident that our meteorologists are watching and ready to respond.

Hear more from our team on how we manage big and small weather events.