Every international airport in the UK, other than LooTown, adopts a far superior, proactive approach to snow clearance. This is because they actually start clearing snow, whilst fresh snow is falling. Thus preventing the underlying snow turning to ice and taking significantly more time to clear.
Of the UK airports I have personal experience of opening through in mid winter, Heathrow, Manchester, Stansted, Glasgow and Gatwick all manage significantly better when heavy snow is falling. .
Daily Telegraph
Snow: Heathrow paralysed, runways closed. By Stephen Adams 7:30AM GMT 03 Feb 2009
Heathrow airport was paralysed as less than four inches of snow forced the closure of both runways.
More than half of Monday's planned 1,350 flights were cancelled, including 361 arrivals and 430 departures, according to airport operator BAA.
Short haul flights were cancelled first to make way for long haul arrivals.
All British Airways flights were cancelled until 5pm, passengers were told in the morning.
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Stansted shamed as service collapses under two inches of snow
The British Airports Authority (BAA) has said that it was "satisfied" with the time it took to reopen Stansted airport after two inches of snow caused operations to grind to a halt for almost 18 hours - far longer than is common at continental and North American airports.
The Essex airport, one of Britain's principal transport hubs, was closed from 6.30pm on Thursday until midday on Friday, forcing the cancellation of more than 300 flights. At Heathrow 225 flights were cancelled and at Gatwick many more. Yet in 33 years Alaska's remote Anchorage airport has never closed because of snow.
Staff at Anchorage are often confronted by 20in of overnight snow, but their crews can clear the two-mile runway in less than 30 minutes. At Stansted it took 12 hours to clear the airport's only runway and a further six hours to clear the surrounding areas. Flights were still being cancelled or rescheduled late on Saturday.