Starting flight school in the rainy season?

The rainy season doesn't stop flight training in Indonesia. It changes when you can fly. Two years of the training airports' own weather reports show the pattern: from November to March, afternoon thunderstorms are the biggest loss. Mornings are usually better, but haze or mist often holds the first lessons until it clears, and at a couple of airfields morning fog is the bigger problem. Plan when your flying starts, which isn't the day you enrol, and your lesson times around that, and the rainy season costs you far less than people expect.

What the weather reports show

Every airport reports its weather every half hour, and Indonesia's meteorological agency, BMKG, keeps those reports. We looked at the daylight reports from September 2024 to October 2026, two full rainy seasons, for airports used for flight training, and counted how often the conditions suited a training flight: visibility of at least 5 kilometres, cloud no lower than 1,500 feet, and no thunderstorm at or near the airfield. Because haze so often sits between 3 and 5 kilometres in the morning, and flights with an instructor can often go in it, we also show mornings with 3 kilometres as the limit. These are rules of thumb for training, not legal limits, and an airport's weather is not exactly the weather in its training area.

Reports at 7, 10, 13 and 16 local time, September 2024 – October 2026, from BMKG. Thunderstorm days count daylight storms at the airfield itself. Sumenep's station is automatic for much of the day, so its figures rest on fewer reports. Bali's training airfield has no weather station; Denpasar, in the south, is the nearest, and north-west Bali is usually drier. Van Nuys: 2020–2024, from the NOAA global hourly archive.

Seasons also differ from year to year. At Banyuwangi, the 2025–26 rainy season brought roughly twice the thunderstorm days of the season before, so treat any one year's figures as a guide, not a promise.

The rainy season costs afternoons

Storms build from midday. At Banyuwangi, for example, thunderstorms were reported in about one in eight reports at 1pm from November to March, and in the stormiest months only around four afternoons in ten were flyable from start to finish. At Cirebon, about a third of rainy-season afternoon reports were unflyable.

So a cadet who flies mornings through the rainy season loses much less. A cadet scheduled for afternoons can lose close to every other lesson in the worst months. Ask any school when you would fly in the rainy season, and whether you can have morning slots.

Mornings: often hazy, sometimes foggy

The morning is the better half of a rainy-season day, but not always from the first light. At Cirebon, Halim and Semarang, haze or mist often keeps visibility between 3 and 5 kilometres early in the morning, and it usually clears by mid-morning. With haze allowed, those airfields fly almost every morning; with 5 kilometres as the limit, they lose around two mornings in ten. Some schools fly in lower visibility within the rules, especially with an instructor on board. Solo flights, which need better conditions, often wait for it to lift.

Two airfields are different. At Budiarto (Curug) and Cilacap, morning mist and fog regularly drop below 3 kilometres, and it is worst in the dry season, so late-morning and early-afternoon slots fly more there. Batam is different again: showers and low cloud spread through the whole year, with no real dry season, so the start month matters less there than on Java.

Further east, Sumbawa Besar, Sumenep and Lombok Praya fly almost every morning, much like Banyuwangi. Their afternoons are another matter for a student pilot: wind of 10 knots or more shows up in about one afternoon report in three at Lombok and Sumenep, which can hold solo flights even on a clear day.

When to start

The dry season, roughly May to October, is the best time for your first months of flying at most of these airfields. At Banyuwangi, Semarang, Cirebon and Halim, almost every July and August report was flyable once morning haze is allowed for. At Curug and Cilacap, the dry season brings more morning fog, so plan on late-morning lessons there.

What you want in that good weather is your first months of flying: the stage where you learn to handle the aircraft and work towards your first solo, and where lessons close together matter most. But you don't fly on day one. Flight school starts with ground school, and how long it takes before your first flight depends on how the school arranges it:

• Theory stage by stage (private licence theory first, then flying): expect about a month of ground school before you fly. Enrol around a month before you want to start flying: in March, to fly from April.
• All the theory up front (everything from the private licence to the multi-engine rating before you fly): expect around three months. Enrol about three months earlier, around January, to be flying by April.
• Modular (theory and flying in the same week): you fly from the start, so you can begin in March or April, as the rain eases, and use the dry season from the first week.

Starting in October or November puts your early flying into the storm season. It is not a reason to wait a year, but expect more cancelled afternoons, and push for morning lessons. Ask every school how its ground school is arranged, and when your first flight would be, then count back from the season you want to fly in.

For why lessons close together matter so much in the early stage, see can you learn to fly while working or studying?

Is the weather better abroad?

Somewhat, but not by as much as you might think. Van Nuys, the Los Angeles airport where some Indonesians train for an American licence, has almost no thunderstorms, and its afternoons are close to perfect all year. But its mornings lose about one in eight reports to low cloud from the sea, worse in May and June. Banyuwangi matches it; most Indonesian training airfields lose more in the rainy season, which costs weeks, not years, and is worth planning around. Where the weather is similar, the bigger differences are airspace, which is more open in the United States, with more airfields to use, and how many students share each aircraft and instructor. If you are choosing between training at home and abroad, the weather is rarely the deciding factor; the cost, the licence conversion and the time away usually matter more.

What to ask a school

• How is ground school arranged, and how long after I enrol is my first flight?
• When do cadets fly in the rainy season: mornings, afternoons, or whenever a slot is free?
• How many lessons did the last group lose to weather between November and March?
• When did that group start, and how long did it take them?
• Is there a satellite airfield to use when the home base is closed?

Our flight school checklist has these questions and the rest, and how long flight school takes explains what else decides the pace.