HEATHROW

[pabely]

Business as normal from....?

BAA LHR Website.....

Severe weather causing flight disruption
Tuesday 21 December - updated at 16:00

Heathrow is operating around one third of a normal flight schedule until 06:00 on Thursday 23 December.

[RB311]

As a result of the wonderful decision making processes that go on at BAA:

When they (BAA) were challenged last time about the lack of infrastructure to deal with snow and ice the BAA merely claimed that their risk management strategy precluded further investment as the occurences were statistically too low to warrent it.

it can only be good news for the UK branch of the Tree Hugging society. For not only will Heathrow not need a 3rd runway, it will soon not need a 2nd one as international airlines take a long hard look at their choice of European Hub.

I feel desperately sorry for all the people who have been hugely bug*ered up by this, but as I used to try to sell de-ciing/snow vehicles to BAA with very little success, as they simply delayed and delayed decisons, I look at BAA's situation with a certain amount of schadenfreude....

[22/04]

Why oh why if both runways are open is there a restriction until Thursday; is the runway open a euphemism (taxiways not open) or is BAA unable to react at less than 36 hours notice.

[possibleconsequences]

There are several reasons why British airports struggle in unusual weather patterns. Suppose Heathrow / Gatwick etc had spent, let's say 20 million between them on ploughs etc then , hey presto - no snow and disgruntled shareholders. They are in the hands of shareholders and , like it or not, that has a strong influence on their decisions.Working out what to spend based on probability of events is a reasonable approach - we all do it, sometimes it goes wrong.

I'm not trying to justify it , if you've privatised and sold off crucial parts of your infrastructure then, unsurprisingly, the profit motive will over ride the 'let's ensure we can cope with ANY extreme weather' motive.


Also, those who say it's only Britain are wrong, Brussels and Frankfurt airports are in an equally dire mess, as are roads all over northern Europe.

However, i know from personal experience in the industry that the health and safety culture (which is only there through fear of being sued should anything go wrong) and the ridiculous, paranoid security culture is crippling some aspects of the business in the UK. I know of staff who have been forbidden by managers from walking on snow in case they slip and then go for compensation, so god help a pilot if he/she suggests taxying over it!

Believe me, there are many of us in the industry who are sick and tired of the health and safety culture that has grown beyond simple, old fashioned 'common sense'. There are also, unfortunately, some dimwits in key positions who can't think of doing anything without writing a safety case first and don't even know how, at the very least, to inform people about what's going on, never mind run a complex situation

Again, however, those who are complaining loudest about being stuck in terminals and moaning about their ' rights' contribute to the perception in the industry that there must be no risk at all and a fear of having to pay compensation to passengers for situations beyond their control.

An extreme weather 'event', fear of litigation, health and safety regulations and airports which normally work at maximum capacity with no leeway makes for the situation we see now.

There is another point of view; maybe the fact that nobody has died and we should expect to be defeated by mother nature once in a while is a more pragmatic approach?

[Carpedeumuk]

Snow on Runway at LHR

One is tempted to think that this is a conspiracy by BAA to get its own back for being denied a 3rd runway, but seriously all it shows is how incompetent they are at running an airport with 2 runways. Perhaps they can take a leaf out of the premiership football clubs business plans which recognise the value of the playing pitches and actually invest in undersoil heating, well since the runway is the airport's equivalent "playing surface" why not invest in below surface heating to help stop snow accumulations, that and a decent fleet of snow clearing vehicles, could be provided and at a fraction of the cost of a 3rd runway they could afford a state of the art system.

[Violet Club]

Clueless

I thought my capacity to be amazed by this shambles had been exhausted but then I read this quote from a BBC report:

>>BAA chief executive Colin Matthews admitted they had been "too optimistic" on Saturday.

"We were doing extremely well up to the middle of Saturday, then we were hit by snow which we have not seen in Heathrow certainly in my lifetime," he said<<

BBC News - Has Heathrow's reputation been damaged?

As Mr Matthews himself points out there was no snow UNTIL the middle of Saturday at LHR, so quite what his definition of "doing well" prior to that is I have no clue.

The idea that the single fall of snow LHR experienced three days ago is somehow unprecedented is risible.

It now transpires that BAA did not even attempt to clear the southern runway, choosing instead to deliberately operate at half capacity and to therefore automatically fail its passengers without even breaking a sweat.

[Max Angle]

Its probably part of their "snow plan" to divert all resources to one runway.

As I said on another thread, we were told that they did not have enough de-icing fluid to keep two runways open and we were forced to cancel 2/3 of our program as a result. The government have apparently made available 100,000 litres of fluid from the military which is why it is now open. Truly pathetic if true.

[Carpedeumuk]

I don't think shareholders will be too impressed at the revenue losses and less quantifiable damage to reputation of the past few days, so I don't think the profit motive arising from privatisation holds water, besides do BAA have to buy snow clearance equipment or can they perhaps hire/lease it when needed at half the cost?

[Dan Dare]

B%gger the shareholders, what about the £100s of millions lost from the UK economy because another of our crown jewels is in the hands of the shareholders rather than recognised as a vital part of our common infrastructure. If the bigger picture was seen rather than the minutiae of profit margins then none of this would be allowed to happen.

except that it would be back in the hands of HM government, and we all know how successfully theytend to run things.

[True Blue]

Mech

I take it you work at Lhr or have close knowledge of what is happening? You have posted a well written article. Would you accept that a major part of the problem is that Lhr is just too full? When something goes wrong, it all becomes a very big problem very very quickly. If there is some merit to my point, is not Baa/Lhr and the airlines largely to blame for trying to keep putting more and more into a defined space?

TB

[Skipness One Echo]

mech assasin you're analysis basically says that everyone adhered to an agreed plan. Look at the results. Utter ineptitude on a grand scale.

How many children wet themselves?
How many babies cried all night?
How many pensioners went cold?
How many of our non English speaking guests got stuck?
How much pollution was caused by holding and holding and more holding.....?

I'm not going to argue with your argument which was well made. I think the point you need to grasp is that on a strategic level it was utter rubbish and not fit for purpose. The exception handling was weak as the data behind it was wrong. This winter is NOT a once in a lifetime event.
I didn't work. I'm not looking around thinking "This weather is exceptional" as I remember this sort of thing. It's the norm within living memory. A few inches of snow in winter. Not feet. Inches. This may be the coldest winter since 1910, but not in London where I live and Heathrow is a London airport, not in the Brecon beacons at -14 degrees.

My question? Given that some of the harshest winters are in the memory of my parents (1947 etc) wasn't it utterly indefensible to lose the ability to deal with a moderate snow fall in December? Epic fail Britain.

Who wants to own a British airport?

Properly run, LHR is a cash cow.

I sincerely hope that everyone affected, can in some way, find something to celebrate and enjoy this coming weekend.

I have no doubt you are sincere in this, but realistically, do you expect this? The reason I raise this, is that realistic expectations are BANG at the heart of this. It was comedically unrealistic to assume we'd not get snow like this.

[Ex Cargo Clown]

Call me cynical, but I have a pretty strong theory about BA's motives for staying single runway.

If LHR stays on singlw RW Ops then it's clearly a weather issue, an "extraordinary circumstance" hence no compensation due.

If LHR goes to full operation and BA are still cancelling flights then they are on a bit of a sticky wicket as that would be seen as an operational decision hence EU261/2004 compensation due.

I reckon BA are trying to buy some time to get crews, A/C in to position before they resume full Ops.

[up & at it]

I have no doubt you are sincere in this, but realistically, do you expect this? The reason I raise this, is that realistic expectations are BANG at the heart of this. It was comedically unrealistic to assume we'd not get snow like this.

Couldn't agree more.

The plan, actions and a result are complete failure.

Here is a link to said "plan":

http://www.baa.com/assets/Internet/H..._2010_2011.pdf

The maximum catagory depth it goes up to is "greater than 2cm". It is clear they were completely under planned and resourced otherwise it would not have taken 4 DAYS to get going again.

The rest of mech assain's text is rather feeble excuses for following the plan that was no good in the first place.




PS I've just read this again:

On Monday the nearly all of stands and taxiways were in use and resource could have been deployed to the southern runway, however a management team from BAA, airlines, AOC and ATC agreed that this was not a priority and that the airlines, due to aircraft in the wrong places, crew out of hours and terminals full of passengers could not meet the capacity of even one runway. A NOTAM was issued explaining the capacity constraints agreed on single runway operation which ran until Wednesday morning.

Are you serious? Not giving airlines the flexibility to get in and out of LHR and clear the backlog and deal with current flights was not a priority?
I read the NOTAM, it restricted all operators to 1/3 of their usual movements or less.
Even now you are not giving them full capacity.
You must be having a laugh with your prioritisation.

[WHBM]

Mech Assassin :

That "plan" is just ludicrous.

and in the event LHR has significant snow fall, just one runway will be maintained.

Whoever came up with this one ? At Helsinki (which has more runway length to maintain than Heathrow) they constantly apply winter maintenance to ALL runways throughout any snowfall.

last Friday BAA treated all surfaces with Glycol media to ensure that LHR had initial protection from any snowfall..... this lasted almost two hours into Saturdays snow, before it was overwhelmed and snow began to settle on the runways.

So nothing was done during the snowfall at all ?

BA and BAA coordinated on Friday night to treat stands with aircraft on, however due to availability of BA tow crews, only one stand was treated properly after more than a two hour wait for them to become free.

So the co-ordination was no co-ordination. How did BAA not know about this non-availability ? Don't forget, it was a "co-ordinated" plan.

the airline community who have supported the strategy set out in this document

You trying to tell us that Finnair supported leaving runways untouched for four days ? Pull the other one. Over in Helsinki they are just dumbstruck at the stupidity of it all.

[Skipness One Echo]

I'm saying be realistic in having expectations.

People look at other countries in worse situations and see them coping better.
The misguided expectations lie with BAA and the industry.

People aren't stupid and I honestly feel we're being taken for fools. We know not enough contingency was set aside as the stats and assumptions that the risk management was based on seem to be pretty dubious. We can see the snow has not been disastrous, people aren't in the main dying or freezing to death, life is going on. We're not asking for 100%, we're looking for better than "utterly shambolic".

If an airline doesn't agree with the Snow Plan they should ensure their representative on the AOC makes that clear.... do they even attend the AOC at LHR?

If this is what destroyed the strategic operation of a national asset, what does that say about the management?

[B.U.D.G.I.E]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Snow-Heathrow-Airport-Trains-Pressure-Mounts-On-Transport-Operators-Over-Frozen-Christmas-Getaway/Article/201012415864224?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_1 5864224_Snow%2C_Heathrow_Airport%2C_Trains%3A_Pressure_Mount s_On_Transport_Operators_Over_Frozen_Christmas_Getaway

so he should

[True Blue]

One of the major problems not mentioned here is that the travelling public want the cheapest fares. We can see clearly BA trying to cope with that demand, not very well and one of the results is that airlines want to operate with as few staff as possible. They want us to use the net. When things go badly wrong, there just is not the staff to deal with it all. WE can all see that all handling agents operate with minimum staff, because airlines will not pay to have lots of staff to handle flights. Web sites go down under the pressure of demand. Info is not updated properly, hence you see a flight "on time" maybe about 24 hours after it should have arrived/departed. This whole problem is not the fault of one single company, we all share the blame. If BA were to provide the perfect service, they would have to charge more, but they would be bankrupt as all the pax booked Ryanair or somebody else who is cheaper.

TB

[Violet Club]

Mech Assassin

Your account is the first coherent explanation of the situation I have seen and I appreciate the time it took for you to set it all out.

For all the detail in this Snow Plan it is clear that it failed utterly, and failed in the face of really not that much adversity at all.

There was one fall of snow on LHR during Saturday morning/early afternoon that left about 6 to 8 in of snow on the airfield. After that there was no more snow and by Monday it had even begun to thaw.

The 'one runway' strategy would be just about understandable in the face of heavy and persistent snowfall, but that's not what we got.

I can't help but feel that very little 'strategy' was employed here and that very little of what we have been told was true.

[British Grenadier]

I crossed 27 L/09R at 08.30 am , and then runway had a single cleared lane down the center , the snow had turned to slush , when BAA finally got off their backside's , ( early afternoon ) it took them 2 hours to clear the runway .................pathetic .................

[circseam]

Heathrow - 20/12/10

I had a flight with Emirates (EK002) with a departure time of 13.45, I arrived at the airport 4 hours before the flight, the journey while fraught was managed fine with major A roads and motorways fine only to be confronted by a scene from a third world nation at Heathrow. Electronic signs were not been updated outside with flight information so everyone was in the dark as to flight status.

People were being physically prevented from entering the airport at all entry points, massive cues enveloped each entry point which turned in to an uncontrollable push by all to be at the head of the que to be able to hear the "official" persons on the door advising that only Egyptair flights would be allowed in.

After waiting for an hour and with very little information being advised to anyone outside of the terminal I spoke with Emirates UK office whom were not aware that their passengers were being held back at the terminal doors, with one hour prior to the departure time Emirates advised us to gain entry as best we could as the flight was due to leave on schedule.

We gained entry by a little brute force on my part to enter the terminal to find a massive cue awaiting at the check in (Emirates had not allowed on-line bookings for this flight), it emerged that in this cue were people for the flights from the previous day, people for the current flight and persons for the later flight, looking around it was alot more organised than other flights!

We made the flight after nearly a 3 hour delay (we were advised on the plane that a small fire had ocurred in the baggage area and that some of our baggage was still in there!) and arrived safetly in Dubai.

The whole process at Heathrow was a complete shambles on the part of the airport operator, very little informatin was being given out, this was then shouted to the masses, only in English (not good for anyone whom didnt speak English and as an international airport why arnt the electronic signs used to convey information?)

It was embarassing to be English and over in Dubai the newspapers are conveying a message of poor orgaisation and complete dissaray, regretably I have to agree!