  Although the sun is really far away from us, some solar activities could
still influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based
technological systems on Earth. Those time-varying conditions in space caused
by the sun are also called space weather, as the atmospheric conditions that
can affect weather on the ground. It is known that aviation activities can be
affected during space weather events, but the exact effects of space weather on
aviation are still unclear. Especially how the flight delays, the top topic
concerned by most people, will be affected by space weather has never been
thoroughly researched. By analyzing huge amount of flight data (~5X106
records), for the first time, we demonstrate that space weather events could
have systematically modulating effects on flight delays. The average arrival
delay time and 30-minute delay rate during space weather events are
significantly increased by 81.34% and 21.45% respectively compared to those
during quiet periods. The evident negative correlation between the yearly
flight regularity rate and the yearly mean total sunspot number during 22 years
also confirms such delay effects. Further studies indicate that the
interference in communication and navigation caused by geomagnetic field
fluctuations and ionospheric disturbances associated with the space weather
events will increase the flight delay time and delay rate. These results expand
the traditional field of space weather research and could also provide us with
brand new views for improving the flight delay predications.
