Sir George Cayley

Interesting to compare the Canadian machine with UK equipment. First thing I noticed was the speed at which it was being driven.

UK equipment of similar size and design comes from Overaasen or Scherling but I've never seen them operating at such speeds. 30 to 40 mph is about as fast as they're driven and watching them on TV at LGW a bit back, slower still.

Could this be one reason for problems getting runways cleared?

As for blowers, ever stood next to a Sickard? Words like skin, rice pudding and pull come to mind!

Sir George Cayley

MarkD

Stick one of the YYC ones on a C-17 perhaps?

WhoopWhoopWhoops

Neither the Major UK airlines or Heathrow or Gatwick will spend the money on the necessary snow and ice removal equipment. Accountants rule.

On the operational side the UK airports waste what few resources they have.

Only the full length and width of runways and the centre line of taxiways need to be cleared.

Aircraft can takeoff and land on icy runways with up to 15mm of slush or 100mm depth of dry snow on them ... A black tarmac is not required.

There are no depth limits for taxiways and aprons.

Yet we see the BAA talk on and on about taxiways and aprons ???

Get the guys some decent boots and put some sand down!!

I have just seen the boss of the BAA on the TV ..I do not see much change , he left me very unimpressed. He seemed to have no operational knowledge. He offered no solutions just telling passengers not to come to the airport.

The fiasco will continue.

highcirrus

In Toronto at the moment and thinking back to a departure from YYZ – Toronto, Pearson Int – about this time last year. We were last of a 23 aircraft, early morning “pod”, driving through the six lane de/anti-icing facility followed by a couple of quick(ish) left turns onto 33R for a takeoff in driving snow. All 23 done and safely airborne in 44 minutes. Impressive performance – you’ve got to hand it to the Cannucks!

JCviggen

<<How are things being handled in other European Airports can anyone say.>>

Can tell you Zaventem (BRU) airport according to news sources is about to "close for departures" because they've just about ran out of de-icing fluid. Slightly embarrassing to say the least.

They won't get any in till wednesday morning

Yellow Sun

Done a lot of that have you WhoopWhoopWhoops?

And you have tried taxying on them?

YS

sky9

I wonder if the directors will achieve their targets and get a big bonus at the end of the year?

clunckdriver

Interesting observation Highcirrus, most of us in Canada love to knock Toronto airport, they are by no means the best run airport in Canada when it comes to snow removal, however watching the total screw up in the UK I can see your point. At our main base of operation its common for the airport manager to be seen out driving a plow when things require extra hands on deck, just cant see this hapening at Heathrow somehow! We live on a farm in Ontario pretty much in one of the snow belts, my wife pointed out that our farm tractor/blower combination is better than most of the equipment we have seen on the tube atempting to keep things going in London. If you are flying back to the UK soon you should stock up on snow shovels, could no doubt sell at a large mark up in the UK!

cats_five

The Internet is an amazing thing:

Frankfurt Airport | Homepage

"Flight delays and cancellations might occur at Frankfurt Airport due to wintry weather and reduced visibility.

Passengers are kindly requested to contact their airline and to check traffic reports, e.g. on the radio or on teletext."

Plenty of 'cancelled' on the arrivals / departures and not all to the UK.

snooky

UK really need to think about what they want from their airports.

At the moment they are operated largely by a foreign company whose interests are in retail and screwing every last penny from the passenger, as in recently introduced drop off and pick up charges.

Government intervention is needed, get rid off the retail and use the space freed up to provide adequate de icing and queue free security.

BAA need a punishment tax imposed for their pathetic performance, which can be spent remodelling airports as places to travel from instead of being shopping malls.

Maybe its already too late, hub travellers will simply avoid Britain.

niknak

And why should they?

It is the airlines, predominantly BA,who have taken the very astute decision to keep as many of their aircraft in the one place where they can re commence flying from the most profitable perspective.
i.e. if they keep the short haul aircraft at any of the London airports they'll be in the perfect position to recommence services from the home base as soon as conditions permit.
Aircraft stuck in Dublin, Madrid or Paris, for example, require extra crews to ferry them out of there and possibly extra crews to get them back to normal.

It's very unfortunate for the passengers, and well done to Ryanair for taking the plunge and risking everything by putting every resource into putting on extra flights into Stansted to ensure the backlog is catered for.
But anyone in any other industry would have taken the same punt - lose a wee bit of profit by not operating but make sure all your resources are in one place to ensure that when the weather is better, you are ready to give everyone the best service possible.

sky9

The problem is you can't clear a stand of snow and ice when there are aircraft on them. It is apparent when flying to European airports that the moment an aircraft moves off stand when it is snowing the snowploughs come on to clean it. Have an airport that works to maximum capacity with aircraft on every stand and the whole airport comes to a grinding halt when it starts snowing.

I wonder if half the problem is that so many managers who experienced snow and ice in the 80's have retired and left young inexperienced people in their place. We've had too many mild winters in the recent past.

v6g

Remember that BAA is the company that lost a billion pound contract at Gatwick because they couldn't hire a few extra security guards.

They're a retail company, not an aviation company. They make money whether or not people are actually flying anywhere.

highcirrus

clunckdriver

No, back on a ULH flight to Asia tomorrow, where they don’t need to know one end of a snow shovel from the other!

It’ll be interesting to compare and contrast YYZ’s performance with that of LHR, given the following TAF:

Guy D'ageradar

Seem to remember a very similar few days in LSGG a few years back - turned up for a morning shift just as they closed for snow clearing, only to clear the runway / taxiways and forget about the apron - result - closed for ~48hrs (memory permitting).

Certain scientific circles have been stating for quite some time that this is indeed the case (in particular, with relation to the gulf of mexico oilspill / "cleanup") with north atlantic water temps measured at 10 degrees lower than normal (try googling "Dr. Gianluigi Zangari").

And yet it was all "unforeseeable"!

El Grifo

Yep cats_five, the internet IS an amazing thing. Hence the reason why I am using it.

I was looking for a more in-depth, first hand kind thing rather that a corporate spout !

I can see for myself the utter chaos from LHR and LGW on the television and get a much clearer impression of exactly what is going on.

I cannot do the same for other European locations.

I am simply trying to understand if the UK reporting is another bash-britain thing, or if other countries are experiencing the same failures.

londonman

Buy some shares in Ferrovial and then go along to the next AGM and make your point felt!

ATNotts

I was watching a fair bit of ARD (German TV) at the weekend, and it's clear that Frankfurt had problems - on Saturday they lost about 30% of their operation, and even today a significant proportion of services were to be cancelled. BUT, and it's a bit BUT, the airport has not been effectively closed for days on end the airport has continued to function to at least some extent. Lufthansa didn't take a BA type decision to cancel all services from FRA either.

When journalists are comparing how the UK (LHR principally) compares with other airports they always go striaght for Canadian and Scandinavian airports, where they always have "real winter". The comparisons need to be made with AMS, CDG and FRA and against them we simply don't measure up.

In my opinion the blame lies at the door of the idiots that privatised BAA, and permitted airport operators, looking for profit, to pair back too far their snow clearing capacity - and heypresto we wind up in the almighty mess which, whatever the politicians and spin doctors from BAA say, is an embarassment for the UK.

El Grifo

BAA has prevented Sky TV at least from reporting inside LHR and LGW today if reports are to be believed !!!

Regarding the atrocious and deteriorating conditions nationwide, at what time do the "government" turn to the military for help ?

egnxema

Interesting that Hammond acknowledged in the Commoms today that LHR is operating at 98% capacity most of the time, any hicough caused aircraft delays airside and pax queing out the doors landside.

AMS, FRA & CDG all have the luxury of a number of runways - allowing csnow clearing to be done continually without fully closing the whole airport.

If the Govt's Scientific Review suggests that increased frequency of snow is to be expected from now on, then it is very hypocritical of the Govt to also block an new runways in the South East.