The world’s most turbulent flights — three are from the same airport
The world’s most turbulent flights — three are from the same airport
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The world’s most turbulent flight routes have been revealed, and you’d better buckle up if you’re flying through South America. Turbulence is most often caused by mountains, storms and powerful jet streams, so it’s no surprise that many of the bumpiest stretches pass over rocky terrain and regions known for extreme weather.
![[Cable car and Costanera Center in Santiago, Chile]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/GettyImages-2018683965.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=509)
The Himalayas and the Andes, which run along the western coast of South America, feature prominently in a new list of routes that recorded the most turbulence in 2024. Using data from the UK Met Office and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), tracker site Turbli found the route most prone to turbulence was the 121-mile trip from Mendoza in Argentina to Santiago, the capital of Chile.
![[aircraft seats]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/GettyImages-970586036.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
The study, which analysed 10,000 routes connecting 550 of the world’s biggest airports, ranked the route from Argentina’s Cordoba region to Santiago in second, and the domestic Mendoza to Salta route in third. The 588-mile journey from Mendoza to San Carlos de Bariloche took the fourth spot, while in fifth was the 355-mile flight from Kathmandu, Nepal, to Lhasa, in Tibet, China.
The majority of the top 10 are in South America, with turbulence on these routes heavily influenced by geographical and meteorological factors, including strong winds from the Andes. Turbli used ‘eddy dissipation rates’ (EDR) to generate the list. EDR measures the intensity of turbulence at a given spot.
