The Time Of Day You Should Avoid Flying During The Summer At All Costs

Sometimes it's unavoidable, but if you live in the United States, you should do your best not to book summer flights that leave later in the day if at all possible. There are plenty of dates that could lay claim to being the worst days of the year to fly, but meteorologist Chris Bianchi (@weatherchris) took to TikTok to explain why summer nights might be the worst. Bianchi explained that the weather was to blame for him shooting the video at nearly 2 a.m. during his own at least three-hour delay. He also gave some advice to help prevent the same thing from happening to you.

"Never book a flight in the afternoon or especially at night during the summertime months in the United States," Bianchi stated in his video. He explained why, unfortunately, passengers spending these types of irritating late nights stranded at the airport is pretty common. Thunderstorms are most likely to form in warm weather, which means that flying in the summer in general increases the risk. Storms form when the air is hot and wet, and those conditions are more likely to occur in the afternoon and evening, making this just about the worst time to book a flight.

Frustratingly, bad weather can cause flight delays and cancellations even if the storm isn't in the city you're in or the one you're going to. This can make it hard to check in advance to see what the weather is going to be like. That said, as meteorologist Chris Bianchi explained in his TikTok, during the summer, "the chances of there being a thunderstorm somewhere in the United States in the afternoon or the evening are pretty high."

As annoying as it is to end up stuck at the airport, there are good reasons for planes not to fly through storms. Both hail and strong winds can be dangerous, rain can impact the brakes, and ice forming on the plane can disrupt how it flies. Even if it's not going to cause a crash, flying through a storm can be seriously scary. There are a lot of good tips for how to book flights if you hate turbulence, but the best one is to do your best to avoid thunderstorms. Passengers unfortunate enough to be caught in a plane flying during a storm can be in for the kind of turbulence that sends things inside the cabin flying.

Obviously, the easiest way to avoid this issue is just not to book a late flight in the summer, but that's not always going to be possible. In his TikTok, Chris Bianchi explained the strategy he uses whenever he has to book a flight at a time when he's worried about storms. In short, book a backup flight so that if your original flight is delayed or canceled, you can still get to your destination on time. Bianchi also makes the point that booking a fully refundable ticket is ideal. That way, you can just cancel it if you don't need it.

It might be worth doing this to make sure you don't miss your own destination wedding, but booking two flights is usually a pretty significant expense. Fortunately, you have other options to at least inform you of what to expect on the day of your flight. There are a lot of good apps that you can use for making your travel plans, and in his video, Chris Bianchi suggests two more to add to the list: flightradar24 and FlightAware. These are live flight trackers that will let you follow your plane before it arrives. You can check your inbound flight and look at the weather along its stops. That way you'll know that, even if your flight is going from Seattle to Los Angeles, if the plane is coming from Dallas and there are storms over Texas, you're probably going to have a delay.