How on eatrh can Colin Matthews keep his job in the face of this complete shambles?
Quite so. And while we are at it, we can tell Ferrovial to take their "investment" and sell it on to someone more competent with a key UK national resource. They've been pushed out of Gatwick and Stansted by the regulatory authorities, now its time for Heathrow.
By 1800 Saturday, just as the snow (in all a few centimetres) STARTED, Heathrow went down to single runway ops, the south runway being closed. How can this be ? The majority of airports around the world are single (significant) runway, and in snow areas they just manage to carry on operating through all winter weather. Not close a main runway at the first snowflake !
WHBM - This is a pure guess, but single runway operations would be required whilst the other runway was being swept. Sweeping can start with very little snow visible on the runway. For any single runway airport the only option is to close for runway sweeping, the only question is for how long.
Anybody see the pathetic responses by the Hon Member for Putney on the politics show this morning
Presumably the Putney Girlie was quite pleased about Heathrow being restricted, so she and the rest of her millionaire neighbours who live on West Hill in Wandsworth-Putney could enjoy their Sunday morning cocktail parties without any distant sound from those nasty aeroplanes approaching Heathrow containing the electorate.
WHBM - This is a pure guess, but single runway operations would be required whilst the other runway was being swept. Sweeping can start with very little snow visible on the runway. For any single runway airport the only option is to close for runway sweeping, the only question is for how long.
I'm very familiar with single runway ops in snow, I just wonder why elsewhere they manage it without this disruption. I also wonder how BA (and all others) manage to operate quite OK off ploughed but snowy runways in Russia, in continuing snowfall, without dfficulty, but can't do it at Heathrow.
The problem with a dual runway airport is the timing of closing a runway for snow clearing.
If you leave it until the same point at which you'd be clearing a single runway airport, it's too late as the other runway will be too contaminated by the time you get to it.
You need to close the first runway earlier than you think to enable it to be cleared and ready to operate, which in turn enables you to close the other runway before the point at which it becomes unsafe and would close anyway.
With all the time buffers you need to build in, the point at which you start thinking that you should be closing the first runway, it's already too late!
.....and of course, at an airport which is scheduled to 99% capacity, you need to set the flow rate to anticipate the first closure by an hour or so to enable the flow to kick in.
It seems more like an art than a science.
WHBM, re Russia, it's different snow. Seriously. Dry, compacted snow is nothing like the usual UK slushy snow. From my understanding, flight crews are far happier to operate from runways contaminated by dry, compacted snow than slush.
It's a good question as to how airports can actually clear snow without any disruption to air transport movements where snow clearing is required. If an airport has the capability to plough / sweep and or blow snow in one pass of the runway, some critical factors in avoiding disruption would be aircraft spacing, rate of snow fall and sweeping speed.
As far as I am aware, some Scandinavian airports claim to never close, not never to suffer from disruption. I don't think anyone involved in snow clearing would take that kind of liberty with nature. Claiming to never close is already pushing your luck.
Many of our practices are down to culture. I can remember landing in a passenger jet with no fire cover present up in the arctic. This appeared to be culturally acceptable, given no medical facilities in the area either, but not elsewhere.
WHBM, re Russia, it's different snow. Seriously. Dry, compacted snow is nothing like the usual UK slushy snow. From my understanding, flight crews are far happier to operate from runways contaminated by dry, compacted snow than slush.
Gonzo, these are some good points, but the thing about snow elsewhere being dry/powdery stuff is not altogether correct. Certainly it might be true today, when the temperatures in St Petersburg are around -20C with low humidity, but in the winter shoulders, in November and March, you get the same around-zero temperatures and snow conditions as here today.
Surely the obvious comparison to assess Heathrow's performance is against Gatwick, Stansted and Luton through the same period. Anyone out there got the data ? Or indeed correct me if I am wrong for supposing those are valid comparators ?
After the December 2010 debacle, which cost airlines more than £50m and wrecked the travel plans of around one million people, the airport has invested heavily in new equipment. BAA has worked with airlines and air-traffic control authorities to formulate a new snow plan. In a statement yesterday, the airport said: "Our snow plan has worked far better than in previous years."
Did a winter in Helsinki and they may hardly ever smile but they sure know how to shift snow. Think they used 15-20 miles slot in traffic to do a runway. I was very impressive watching 5 of everything going for it.
And gonzo is correct landing on a white strip in -20 with the approprate performance penalties is quite a suprising experence (certainly not a bad one). In fact our home based runway only got cleared when the glass ice built up to such an extent that the cutter thing that chops grooves into ICE couldn't deal with it. Only bum twitcher was getting to your car.
Leaves on the runways? But then again this lack of preparation for winter is a UK thing. Winter tyres are so uncommon or even unheard of, even across the Pennines. Just plain daft. Even in Holland, not a mountain in sight, winter tyres are the norm. In Germany, if it is snowy, winter tyres are mandatory, and if you have an accident on summer tyres it is automatically a high % your fault. Common sense. Why do insurance companies not insist on winter tyres. I find it daft that they demand to be told if you change the spec of your car with winter tyres and charge you more. The lack of ability to cope with winter at UK airports has been in place for my last 30 year flying. Unbelievable they have not learnt from previous cock ups. If this philosophy had applied to a/c design there would have been umpteen repetitive crashes. London wants to be the financial capital of EU, but no one can reach it by plane. Not the best advertisement. When will Uk wake up to winter?
As has been alluded to, LHR had both runways and taxiways all cleared by 0700 on Sunday. Other airlines were operating. Not sure anything from BA landed after 0800, even though there were vacant stands cleared of snow in T5.
Of course, having departed aircraft for LHR, only to divert out, means lots of wasted slots that other airlines could have used!
As has been alluded to, LHR had both runways and taxiways all cleared by 0700 on Sunday. Other airlines were operating. Not sure anything from BA landed after 0800, even though there were vacant stands cleared of snow in T5.
Of course, having departed aircraft for LHR, only to divert out, means lots of wasted slots that other airlines could have used!
HT :
The snow started around 1900 Saturday and stopped in the early hours. LHR is an H24 airport. The suppliers of the kit shown in the links from Helsinki above state on their website they "clear a 3,500m long runway in 10 minutes". Airport Equipment from Øveraasen Snow Removal Systems The first arrival is due in to LHR shortly after 0430 from Hong Kong. As I understand it they were even ground held in Hong Kong the previous evening because nobody thought there was any chance of LHR being prepared for them to get in on time.
I see that there was kit for runways and taxiways, which was eventually got going. What plan was there to clear the stands, which has been the key issue before ?
Strikes me as too easy to take pot shots at LHR mgmt and compare LHR to other airports but that doesn't progress the debate - merely gives spectators an opportunity to vent. I find it hard to believe that the mgmt wake up each morning planning to do a bad job so what is it about the place that sees this issue reoccur?
So for my own education I've had a quick trawl through t'net & found:
LHR - 2 parallel rwys; busiest by total pax number CDG - 4 parallel rwys; 2nd busiest by pax numbers FRA - 4 rwys (3 parallel); 3rd busiest by pax numbers
So LHR has more pax per ATM & more ATM per rwy than the others. If it's true that they operate at 99+% capacity, seems reasonable to me that any restriction in ATM (eg poor wx) will have disproportinate impact than at other airfields. I imagine airlines need to make early decisions on flow rates which would explain the ground holds in APAC.
Second aspect is rather than kick the can down the road (again), who's got the solution? I suspect it's much harder to solve than blame...
Reason's model keeps me thinking too - were there failures or violations?
How do you operate the 2nd busiest airport in Europe on 2 rwy's when bad weather is imminent? Mind you, last Snow Day they shut for 3 (4?) days so this strikes me as an improvement.
Stats, damn stats... do my head in...knew there was a reason I didn't become an accountant!
Transport Secretary
