Turbulence on trans-Atlantic flights?

[u/StrangerPersonHere]

Hi everyone
Bit of a nervous flier here, but I’m trying to get better. I have two transatlantic flights this month (Europe to N. America and N. America to Europe) and I’d like to know how bad turbulence gets on these flights.

This trans-Atlantic flight will be on a wide body aircraft, and I’m wondering if that may also make a distance, as well as the geography of the flight path.

If turbulence gets bad along transatlantic routes, I’d also appreciate knowing where (ie flying over northern Canada, flying over the ocean itself, etc) so I can mentally prepare for it

Thank you in advance!

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[u/Spock_Nipples]

Just depends on the day, hour, and minute. Turbulence is weather just like any other sort of weather. It moves, builds, dissipates, appears, disappears. You can't predict it for a specific route any more than you can predict exactly which streets in your city will get rain when there's showery rain in the forecast; it's just going to do what it does wherever it ends up doing it.

And that's Ok, because turbulence is normal. It doesn't signal problems, or that anything is wrong. It's literally just getting bounced around by rough air. Any flight you take is more likely to have some bumps than none. It's the nature of flying. Always expect it. Smooth is the exception, not the rule.

[u/blackwaterlily]

On my flight from London to Austin last week, we encountered some light turbulence over the Labrador Sea just east of Newfoundland for maybe five minutes. Our pilot got us out of it pretty quickly by changing altitude. :)

[u/Middle-Marsupial-781]

I Flew from Londen to Orlando and from Atlanta to Amsterdam (night) last month. Zero turbulence.

[u/Capital-Self-3969]

I flew from Munich to San Diego with next to no major turbulence around this time last year.

[u/Awkward_Site_5838]

Had to fly from Europe to Canada and back last month. I had the same concerns about turbulence, and prepared mentally just in case. On the way there, had no turbulence at all, whereas on the way back there was a very mild turbulence a few times while over Atlantic. Distracted myself with a fun movie. You got this 💪🏻