Wider industry trends5 Increasingly frequent climate, workforce, grid and cyber disruptions highlight urgency to advance resilience planning and risk mitigation. From more frequent and severe weather events to new types of physical and digital disruptions affecting airports, trends during 2025 highlighted the urgency for executives to ramp up resilience planning alongside decarbonization. Aviation operations were disrupted by – among other events – hurricanes, intense solar radiation, drones, cyberattacks and electrical infrastructure failures. Workforce constraints and disputes further interrupted the flow of passengers and goods, with protracted impacts on end-users lasting often weeks or months. Extreme weather events in 2025 and early 2026 have elevated climate resilience as a sustainability risk in its own right for aviation. Flooding, storms, heatwaves and energy disruptions are already affecting airlines, airport operations and infrastructure, with direct implications for safety, connectivity, insurance costs and long-term investment planning. As climate impacts intensify alongside other natural phenomena – such as the solar storm that grounded all Airbus A320s in November 2025183 – resilience is becoming essential to safeguard continuity of air travel and minimize the economic and societal disruption associated with climate shocks. While infrastructure resilience remains critical, 2025 has seen growing recognition that operational resilience is equally decisive. Airports are not only exposed through runways, terminals or power systems,184 but also through tightly coupled operational processes that can amplify disruption. Increasingly common “once-in-a-century” extreme weather events can generate cascading impacts across the aviation system, from severe heat reducing operating hours to heavy floods on access roads that constrain passenger flows. Preparedness pays off Recent climate events have reinforced the value of preparedness and rapid emergency response, as illustrated by airports that successfully maintained continuity during major weather disruptions. Examples include: –Hong Kong Airport’s efficient handling of the major travel disruptions caused by Typhoon Ragasa in September 2025 (see Box 3).185 –The temporary suspension of flights at Marseille Provence Airport in July 2025, due to nearby wildfires.186 –Significant flooding around the Texas border in spring 2025, where regional airports mitigated operational impacts through rapid response and continuity planning.187 Climate risks differ from airport to airport and cannot be fully avoided, but their impacts can be reduced. Airports need to assess the potential disruptions that may occur in their region and their vulnerabilities, so to invest in measures that allow a quick and effective response when extreme weather occurs. Today, many airports still lack clear, detailed data and common ways to measure climate risk,188 which makes it harder to plan investments and increases uncertainty for insurers and investors.5.1 Climate resilience of airport infrastructure amid extreme weather events Recent climate events have reinforced the value of preparedness and rapid emergency response. Global Aviation Sustainability Outlook 2026 45