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Old 2nd Feb 2009, 18:55
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Say Again, Over!
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Montréal, Canada
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As one who works where it snows 4 months out of 12, and where 25cm in a day isn't uncommon at all, I would humbly suggest that you don't realize all the implications of being ready to face such a weather event.

Where I worked, during a "snow event", additional staff was called in to coordinate along clear guidelines develloped over years of refining.... and they weren't perfect! Just deciding on what priority each bit of pavement got wasn't easy. It's great to plow and sweep the runways but when you can't use the taxiways you're in trouble. So you need crews for both. Sweeping also isn't enough as you'll quickly cover the edge lights so you need to think about having snow blowers as part of the convoy.

To top it off, you decide to taxi a bunch out of the deicing bay (you do have one right?) to your active only to learn that it's no longer useable since it's now too slippery. So until the trucks can lay down chemicals and do a couple passes on the runway to increase friction to a better level, their hold over time as gone by under the falling snow and they must return to deice.

Your arrival runway is now suffering the same fate and so holding time coming in increases as well.

What I described was at an airport that's ready for snow!! Imagine if yours isn't!

Continuous heavy snow operation is more than just having a few trucks to plow the runways. The costs of being ready for such an operation would be enormous and you still would see a markable decrease in efficiency. Would you want them to spend all that money and bring the tab to you? (They would anyway!)

Cheers,

Felix
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