Airborne platforms serve as an essential link in promoting the space-air-ground integrated wide-area optical/quantum communication network. However, when airborne platforms operate at high speeds, aero-optical effects cause beam deviation, jitter, blur, energy attenuation, and other phenomena that affect the performance of optical/quantum communication systems. To begin, this paper delves into the study of aero-optical effects, and the effects of aero-optics on airborne optical communication are described and analyzed in terms of three aspects: the increased burden on the pointing, acquisition, and tracking system; interruption of the communication link; and decrease of communication quality. In addition, the beam shifts, increased transmission loss, and key rate degradation caused by aero-optical effects in several airborne quantum key distribution scenarios are presented. Finally, the challenges faced by airborne optical/quantum communication systems in transmission link optimization, system performance evaluation, and compensation method design are summarized, and the prospects for development in this field are outlined.