Inaccurate weather forecasts affect over 4,000 air passengers: report

This photo shows passengers at Terminal 1 of Incheon Airport. (Im Se-jun/The Korea Herald)

Government data showed Thursday that 4,394 domestic airline passengers could not reach their destination in the first half of this year, due to forced turnarounds caused by inaccurate weather forecasts.

Of all the cases of planes returning to their departure airports due to bad weather between January and June of this year, the forecast was wrong on 20 occasions and did not require the turnaround. This was revealed by Rep. Jeon Yong-gi of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, who cited data provided by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Meteorological Administration.

This occurred on flights of six out of South Korea's 13 airlines.

"Both the airlines and the KMA must monitor the turbulence to minimize the damage caused by inaccurate weather forecasts," Jeon said, adding that he could not get the accurate figure for passengers from some carriers, and the actual number of passengers may be even higher.

The number of passengers affected by the faulty weather forecasts was higher than the figure for all of 2023, which was 4,311.

Unfavorable weather conditions are one of the leading causes of aviation accidents, varying from reduced visibility to turbulence. As such, airlines pay fees to the government to receive information on the weather conditions.

Last year, the 13 domestic carriers paid a total of 1.43 billion won ($1.03 million) to use the weather information provided by the Aviation Meteorological Office, an affiliate of the KMA. The fee rose sharply from 543 million won in 2022.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)