Increased turbulence, passengers boiling on the tarmac, cancelled and diverted flights, windows blowing out – now this.
Summer temperatures across the U.S. are so high that they’ve created problems at cruising altitude, causing some overheated beverages to burst midair on a number of Southwest Airlines flights.
Many of the airports where Southwest has a large presence — such as Phoenix, Las Vegas, Austin, Dallas, Houston and Sacramento — are located in cities that have already broken temperature records this year, as a result of heat waves fueled by climate change.
Southwest confirmed to NPR that heat has warped some cans and caused others to burst upon opening, an issue it’s been communicating with employees about since the spring. But it stressed there haven’t been any reported incidents involving customers.
“We’re aware of the issue and have been taking steps to keep onboard beverages cooler, especially in our airports experiencing extreme temperatures,” spokesperson Chris Perry said in a statement.
Some 20 flight attendants have been injured by exploding cans this summer, including one who required stitches, according to CBS News. The union that represents Southwest flight attendants, TWU Local 556, has not responded to NPR’s request for comment.
“For the Safety of our Employees and Customers, we are taking education and mitigation measures on all heat-related hazards,” Perry added.
The issue appears to be unique to Southwest, which handles in-flight beverages differently than other airlines.
It’s also telling airport teams to use digital thermometers to take the temperature of cans before loading up each plane, and to hold back any cans that read above 98 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once airborne, the company is instructing flight attendants — who take passengers’ orders and then bring them their drink, rather than pushing a beverage cart through the aisle — to not open any cans that look misshapen or feel hot to the touch, and to instead offer customers an alternative and an apology.
Of course, climate change creates more woes for travelers than just limited beverage choices. It intensifies weather events like floods and storms, makes flying planes harder and may also be to blame for bumpier flights.
The existing mechanism of “cold chains” being maintained to ship sensitive pharmaceuticals, wine, fresh foods, etc., is long established, but now that we’re regularly dealing with >100°F delivery trucks or product sitting more than 20 minutes on a roasting loading dock or just plain hot warehouses, more businesses are going to have to establish cool chains (or not-too-hot chains) when shipping product.
There are already temperature-monitoring labels that are used on existing shipments (e.g., live lobsters), but businesses that never thought they needed them will start to use versions that indicate if products have every reached above, say, 90°F.
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They now have beverages that use nitrogen instead of carbon dioxide. I’ve had people tell me that cans with them burst easily if dropped.