A flight route to a stunning seaside city has been revealed as Europe‘s worst for turbulence. 

As January drags on and memories of summer continue to fade, we may be thinking it’s time to arrange a mid-winter jaunt to sunnier pastures.

But when planning where to travel, time and money aren’t the only considerations. Turbulence, or how comfortable a flight might be, can be highly rated by many, especially anxious flyers.

The team at Trubli, a website dedicated to tracking turbulence on flights worldwide, has put together a list of the rockiest flight paths in 2024. According to the US Federal Aviation Administration, 37 passengers and 146 crew members were seriously injured due to turbulence between 2009 and 2023.

Turbulence remains the single biggest cause of injuries on commercial flights. However, deaths are rare, and the one which occurred on a Singapore Airlines flight last year was the first time a person had been killed on a flight due to turbulence since 1997.

When it comes to the most turbulent flights in Europe, eight out of ten begin or end in Switzerland. Routes passing over and around the Alps are also known to cause a little discomfort.

To quantify the likelihood of turbulence, Trubli uses eddy disspation rate (EDR), which is a way to measure atmospheric turbulence that’s independent of an aircraft’s characteristics. It’s the standard metric used by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the World Meterological Organisation (WMO) to measure aviation turbulence.

Surprisingly, Nice featured four times among the most turbulent routes in Europe in 2024.

Nice to Geneva topped the chart with an EDR reading of 16.07. Flights between Nice and Zurich took second place, registering an EDR of 15.49. Nice reappeared in fifth place for travellers moving between the sunny seaside city and Basel.

Nice to Lyon placed seventh. Zurich appeared five times, and almost all of the 10 flight routes included destinations in Switzerland. 

According to Turbli, an EDR reading of 20 and under is considered “light” while anything between 20 and 40 are considered moderate. There are no routes in the world which ranked as strong, which ranges from between 40 and 60, or extreme, which is defined as being between 80 and 100, on a yearly average basis. 

But that does not mean some individual flights haven’t crossed these thresholds. The most turbulent routes in the world are all in South America and involve crossing the Andes mountain range.

The most turbulent, with an EDR of 24.68, was from Mendoza in Argentina to Santiago, Chile. Cordoba to Santiago ranked second and Mendoza to Salta came third.

Turbulence may be more common around mountainous areas because of winds rising upwards over the peaks and causing updraughts. These upwardly-moving currents may hit a stable air barrier at altitude, sending them back down to the ground and causing a downdraught.

High peaks can also create “mountain waves”, which are caused by a disturbance to horizontal airlow. These extreme changes can cause an aircraft to rise, drop or bounce up and down as it passes through. 

Temperature and humidity also contribute to turbulence. According to Euro News, the warmer and more humid the air, the more extreme the turbulence will be. 

Experts believe that climate change will cause greater extremes in temperature and storm surges, making turbulence worse in the future.

Modern aircraft are designed to handle extreme turbulence events without damage. Passengers, however, are advised to buckle up to avoid injury.