Airlines' Feedback on New Weather Charts

In December 2004, the Observatory conducted a survey to collect feedback from airlines operating at the Hong Kong International Airport on the trial use of new significant weather charts generated from digital data provided by the World Area Forecast System (WAFS). Details of the survey can be found in the previous bulletin (http://www.weather.gov.hk/en/aviat/outreach/product/survey_wxp.htm).

A total of 15 returns from airlines were received. The majority of the airlines find the new digitally-generated weather charts an improvement over the existing facsimile charts and support them replacing the facsimile charts. In the light of this positive feedback, the Observatory plans to provide more customized weather charts generated from the digital WAFS data for additional areas based on airlines' requests. One sample customized chart is given below.

Significant weather chart for a tailored area generated from digital WAFS data

More details on the survey results and feedback to be provided to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) can be found in a paper to be discussed in ICAO's WAFS Operations Group Meeting in March 2005 (http://www.icao.int/anb/wafsopsg/meetings/wafsopsg2/wp/Wp17.pdf).