Originally Posted by
farefield
Hit the nail on the head, the 'elf and safety culture is so restrictive, however if you go to some parts of the world and see the blatant disregard for common sense or the rules it makes you cringe.
Indeed. I used to work for an Australian owned but UK run company, and almost died laughing when they sent out a 'winter preparation pack' to all stations globally. It was comically simple and contained information any 4-year old kid in my country would have known; that winter is cold, snow is slippery and ice even more so. If that's the level of communication you need to get the point across, I'm afraid there's not much hope.
It's also worth mentioning that it's the airports who'll have to finance the equipment, but the airlines who'll be bearing the compensation (EU261) claims. That's hardly an incentive for the airports to do anything about it, and as long as there's a demand for the airport to provide its service, there's not much apart from moaning and bickering the airlines can do about it. Sure, the airport could raise fares to finance the purchases, but that'll result in even louder moaning and bickering. Nothing's quite so short-sighted as airline ground operations; eyes are firmly fixed on the next quarter and money's tighter than a tight thing.