Snow & Delays
Yesterday I was a passenger on an early morning flight from Gatwick to a European City and have a couple of questions and would appreciate the perspective from the professionals.
We boarded c7am, once all seated and doors closed the Capt informed us that due to the snow we had had a 60 minute delay for the de-icer to come and give us the once over.
My questions are:
1) As the south of England had 4 days notice of this weather coming couldn't the de-icing be done prior to loading the passangers?
2) The de-icer is basically a truck with a man spraying the aircraft from a gantry. I could see this truck doing one aircraft to another and finally coming to us. Could this activity be streamlined by moving the aircraft to the de-icers as part of the taxi run to the runway (sort of like a car wash)? i.e push back, taxi for de-ice then taxi to runway.
I'm sure that if you are in the profession there are blatantly obvious answers to these, but as a humble SLF, I'd appreciate my ignorance being alleivated.
Thanks
Vankem