I'm quite worried as I'm on a transatlantic flight during this event, and there have been 6 solar eruptions with at least 4 CMEs (NOAA not up to date with the enlil spiral just yet). Here are a couple useful links I'm using to keep track of this event: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center dashboards [1], FlightAware Flight Delays and Cancellations [2] and NOAA Global Positioning System Community Dashboard [3], Prof. Mathew Owens post [4]
Totally makes sense - if we don't understand what's going on, our minds immediately go to a worst case scenario. I hope you have a safe and enjoyable flight - at this point you're putting your trust in the hands of air travel regulators, and they have a pretty solid track record of safety.
There can be interruptions to radio communications and GPS, but there's multiple ways that airplanes track where they were and where they're headed. In addition to GPS, airliners have Inertial Reference Units which the aircraft can use to figure out where they are.
The big impact to humans from storms like these are the miles-long antennas (also known as power lines) that can pick up a charge from the energized particles streaming from the sun and cause damage to transformers and other equipment.
So, your flight will be fine, but worst case scenario maybe you will land at a place that won't have power.
I came here to say the same. I will also be on a transatlantic flight on the 12th. Is there anything to be worried about with airplane electronics systems in flight, or is it more potentially on the side of "there might be flight delays"?
>Is there anything to be worried about with airplane electronics systems in flight, or is it more potentially on the side of "there might be flight delays"?
An airplane is a big closed conductive tube, not connected to the ground. There's nothing to worry about. I'd happily fly on those days.
As for why we worry about the storms on the ground - the main effects of Geomagnetic storms on the ground involve DC currents generated in power grids that span hundreds of miles, at the ends of those transmission lines, are transformers engineered to most efficiently use the transformer steel by almost pushing it to saturation, at which it rapidly loses the ability to contain more lines of flux. This saturation can then allow almost unlimited amounts of current to flow, turning the transformer into a space heater, connected to gigawatts of power. Things can then very rapidly get out of hand, circuits fault, opening lines, causing power to be diverted elsewhere, until the entire grid goes down.
I was trying to find stuff around Oct 2003 when the last event of this magnitude took place, but I wasn't able to find anything comparable. From what I can tell the forecast is more mild on the 12th UTC, so I wouldn't worry that much about that. I was worried in my case because my flight leaves pretty much at the apex of the geomagnetic storm.
I think we can expect delays, GPS being unresponsive, radio issues, and some control tower congestion & issues. Can't really comment with any more detail.