The 13 2018 Typhoons: What was the impact on the airline industry?

13 typhoons from July 1st to September 20th and their impact on the operations of 28 major airports in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, and South Korea was the subject of a recently released study by Variflight.

The study shows that typhoons caused cancellations of over 15,000 flights and led to the lowest on-time departure rate of 4.47% at Naha Airport, while typhoon Jebi and Mangkhut had the most severe impacts on airports in this region.

Typhoons and tropical depressions are a common occurrence in Asia-Pacific during summer-early fall. This year, only in the course of 2.5 months, the region was hit by 13 typhoons and strong storms. Even though not all of those typhoons were as destructive as Jebi or Mangkhut, they still brought about disruptions of transportation including flight cancellations and delays.

This report covers information on 13 typhoons and storms and the flight disruptions they brought to major airports in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan and South Korea in July – September 2018 .

Only the airports that took a “direct hit” from one or more typhoons during the selected period were included in the report. The airports were analyzed by the following parameters:

1. On-time performance (OTP) rate
2. Average delay time
3. Flight cancellations

Additionally, typhoons were analyzed according to their influence on flight disruptions and cancellations.

 Lowest departure OTP rate: 4.47% – Naha Airport (OKA)

 Lowest arrival OTP rate: 5.41% – Dalian Airport (DLC)

 Longest average delay time: Jeju Airport (CJU) – 24 hours, Dalian Airport (DLC) – 7.5 hours

 Total number of cancellations caused by typhoons: 15,732.

 Airport with the largest number of cancellations: Shanghai Pudong Airport (PVG) – 1,349.  The most severe typhoons: Jebi, Mangkhut. Airports Number of Hubs affected by Typhoons

Out of all the airports selected for the report, 7 were hit by 4 typhoons in total, including airports located in Japan: Naha, Kagoshima, Fukuoka, and in Mainland China: Hangzhou Xiaoshan, Shanghai Hongqiao, Shanghai Pudong and Nanjing Lukou. Each of the 5 largest civil aviation hubs in Japan, including Itami (ITM), Chubu Centrair (NGO), Narita (NRT), Haneda (HND), and Kansai (KIX), was affected by 3 typhoons.

Summer typhoon season 2018 and airport disruptions in East Asia shows the full report.