A couple of points, first the losses due to the closure do they outweigh the cost of the investment required to get proper equipment and expertise to be able to keep Heathrow operative in such conditions?
However another probably less thought over issue, is the infrastructure surrounding the airports operations, if all other surrounding transport is brought to a standstill, how will crew, and other airport workforce be able to go to and from the airport? Within reasonable time limits, this is a secondary issue of the whole problem.
Uk needs to have complete contingency to deal with these kind of issues, as it seems they will becoming more and more frequent in the future.
It is no good if you can keep the runways, taxi ways and aprons clear, if you do not have staff being able to get to and from the airport due to complete break down in the transport network.
The fact is that there was pretty good forecasts of what was going to happen, yet nothing was prepared to meet the events that occurred. I previously lived in Norway, and if such events would cripple the nation, you might as well have closed down the country for 4 months of the year, and it would have been complete economical meltdown.
Privaticing the airport operations was the first major mistake, as the revenue made from the airport operations would have sustained the investment to get the equipment required and the training required of workforce to know what they should do in these events. However a profit driven BAA, will look at it as an acceptable loss, unless they are punished for breach of contract for not being able to keep the airport fully operational.
I do find it laughable to such conditions have created such chaos.
I personally was surprised by National Express, who had suspend all their buses from 1Pm on Saturday, I came from Stansted in the afternoon, and was told no buses by them available, while other companies was still driving from Stansted into London.
This I feel is unacceptable, as the roads was drivable on this stretch, as I took the bus from another company into Victoria.
Simple precautions that people in general can make are getting all season tires, they are not perfect for winter, but are much better than the normal tired they driving around with now.#
Secondly people in Scandinavia have courses in how to drive on winter roads and icy conditions, people in the UK are like "babies" learning to walk, and not even having some common sense of how dangerous these conditions really are unless you have some experience and the right equipment on your car.
I was astonished to see who people was racing past on icy slush/snow/mud - probably not being aware of that if they touched their brakes they would end up in the barrier of the road if lucky!!!
Now I am not sure how London can become standstill with few inches of snow, lack of experience, and refusal to learn are the main reasons!