Wintertime flights - am I crazy?

[forcedtofly]

I am always afraid of flying, but have always been even more afraid of flying during the wintertime. I have never done it. The thought of snow, ice, cold, and delays just makes me even more wound up than I normally am. My mom has been after me to visit at Christmas for the last two years, so I am finally breaking down and going out there this year for the holidays. I just don't know how I am going to handle the flights, though, with the added fears of the season.

Do any of you travel much during the winter, and if so, do you notice much difference from traveling during the rest of the year? Is there really an added risk to flying in the cold months, or am I just worrying for nothing? I ordered Flying Without Fear this week, and I'm hoping that it will help me to prepare. I have a few months before I have to get on the plane. I think the Buffalo crash last February really added to my wintertime fears. The thought of ice building up...:( It is unsettling to think of that accident.

[Aurora]

Hi!

I can very very clearly see what you mean, cause me myself haven't been the keenest winter flyer.

BUT - that said - there is absolutely no risk to flying during the winter. In fact, I live north of the polar circle. We have winter storms from October all the way into May. I live along the coast so it never drops below minus 18 degrees, but a coastal climate brings tons and tons of polar low pressure systems with very very dense snowfall and winds up to 25 m/s-30m/s. These systems are hard to predict, and can hit all of a sudden.

And what do you know?! EVEN though this is a fact, there are over ten departures each day, never on a delay and never an accident occurring since 1934. And we're talking small Dash 8 Q100 / Q300'eds here. Many of my friends who live up north along the coast regularly take these flights each Christmas. They accurately compare the flight to being in an earth-quake, it shakes and jumps around all over the place. But it ALWAYS lands.

Why? Because the company is filled with skillfull pilots, they have years of experience with this field of flying and they do whatever it takes to get people safely from A to B within the time proposed.

So yes, you have nothing to fear flying during the winter. It is colder, therefore they de-ice the planes before they take off. I've even flown to Svalbard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard) (and am in two months again, middle of the winter! :shocked: ) - there is absolutely no problems in doing that. Every day there is two or three flights up and down from Svalbard to the mainland, it goes so all through the year, without any accidents ever occurring. That's a route safely between the north pole and the arctic circle flown since 1974! The ONLY thing I worry about (and why I have avoided flying during the winter before) is turbulence, cause the weather system along the coast is very very unstable from October-January. If you live far away from the coast you don't even have that problem :D

[MathFox]

I am always afraid of flying, but have always been even more afraid of flying during the wintertime. I have never done it. The thought of snow, ice, cold, and delays just makes me even more wound up than I normally am. [...]

Do any of you travel much during the winter, and if so, do you notice much difference from traveling during the rest of the year? Is there really an added risk to flying in the cold months, or am I just worrying for nothing?
I am travelling for work all around the year and in my opinion it is reasonable to expect more delays in wintertime, but you are most likely to sit through those in the comfort of the airport or aboard a heated plane. There are several good reasons for the delays, the refrain is: they delay the plane to get you at your destination safely.
One thing that you might encounter is "deicing", where they spray the plane with hot fluid to remove snow and ice; this holds up the plane for 5-10 minutes, but it also means that it takes off with clean wings. Another common source of delays is snow removal, where they close a runway for 10-15 minutes so that it can be safely swept.

Personally I worry much more about riding a car on slippery snowy roads. (Been there, done that, on my way to the airport.) In my (half-trained) eye Boston (Logan) airport is far better prepared for snow and ice than San Diego.

I think the Buffalo crash last February really added to my wintertime fears. The thought of ice building up...:( It is unsettling to think of that accident.

May I call you a victim of the media here, ice played no significant role in that accident. The NTSB found wrong power/propellor settings by a fatigued crew as primary cause for the accident.

[bellevueace]

I travel to spain in the winter, last year on arriving at the airport there was a thick freezing fog, the flight was delayed 20 minutes whilst they de-iced the wings, there was a longer queue for take off slots due to visibility but on taking off it was no different to a nice summers day. Once through the cloud cover your into the nice clear blue sky with that big sun. Arriving back with torrential rain and strong winds again there were no problems apart from being a few slight bumps coming down through the cloud, a perfect landing was made on a sodden runway, have no fears about flying in winter, ive found its not much different to other times of the year.