My dear chap,

I did used to be a chock chucker and we did adapt most things to lend a hand.

Just hope that 'company rules' don't come back to haunt you...

When the stinky stuff hits the rotary thing all hands to the pumps and do what needs to be done!

OB:ok:

Opsbeatch
 

You still have not said how we get hold of two dozen shovels....as we are aircraft ground handling agency not council workers....as i said shovels are a bit thin on the ground.....when the BAA cant even clear snow from around the fixed electrical power boxes....and it's there job,they have the gear....maybe we should just give them the week off and do it ourselves.

i have not seen any STN BAA people outside on the ramp with shovels....they are all tucked up in a nice warm cabs....if it can't be done from the cab it is left......maybe they could give shovels to security so when they come round and check all the stands once an hour they can clear a bit of snow away while there......no maybe not...that would also mean getting out of a nice warm car.

after driving round the airport in open vehicles at -5...the last thing i think of is...i must clear a bit of snow...its back to the rest room to thaw out.


MERRY XMAS

Grizzler
 

I wouldn't trust security to use the right end of a shovel!!! :ok:

Happy Christmas! :)

My opinion (only that, an opinion) is that the operations department of BA got it just right. Other airlines had the same weather forecasts and it was pretty clear that trouble was coming, if they were to trust those forecasts. They decided to call the weather´s bluff and BA decided to fold. BA made the wise decision. They manage to stop several thousand passengers from coming to the airport to stand in a horribly packed teminal building trying to find out if their flight was departing or not. The other operators interpreted the forecast as an "it may not be that bad" situation. BA interpreted it as "the airport is going to close". This way, I believe, they avoided even more disruption, as they didn´t have so many crews and aircraft out of position, and made the job of caring for passengers in the terminals much easier, and a higher chance of operating more flights when the problem was solved. The other companies were in the mindset of "if we don´t cancel the flights and the weather is not that bad, we will operate normally and we won´t lose any money". BA had the mindset of "if we don´t cancel the flights and the weather is at bad as it seems it´s going to be, we will be up to our chest in the smelly stuff...". BA got it right this time, I believe.

I also believe that, in the "let´s avoid bad publicity" mindset, and in the "hope that everything will just be ok" mindset, the BAA was issuing unrealistic estimates about when the airport would re-open, which led to BA and other companies to schedule flights that had to be cancelled as it became clear that the BAA were nowhere near clearing up the mess within that schedule. I mean, I don´t think their procedure is to ask the operational teams "how long will it take?" and then giving an estimate on that basis to the public. I think the procedure is issuing an internal memo stating "a bloke calling from an office in the company HQ, accompanied by a PR advisor, has examined the problem and made his calculations, and the analysis results indicate that it is logistically possible for the problem to be sorted out within four hours, so let´s publish that estimate so the airlines can work around that estimate". Then "unfortunately, the calculations were slightly wrong, but the PR geezer still says we shouldn´t be confessing that it will take us three days to get the airport clear of snow, as this would erode the trust in our brand, so let´s give them another unrealistic estimate basing on our own assessment of the situation, and then hope for an improvement of the weather. Should this improvement never happen, then we will extend our estimate time of re-opening".

BA just didn´t trust BAA´s estimates. They did at the beggining, but they decided not to call the bluff. They were proven right.

Hi,

I'm a bbc journalist looking at why the snow caused Heathrow such problems before xmas for a show called The Report on Radio 4.

Would really appreciate some (anonymous) info as to exactly what was going on at Heathrow and what needs to happen to improve the situation next time it snows. Or maybe BA, BAA and Swissport did as good a job as possible?

Is it just a case of not enough de-icer?

Many thanks,

Lucy Proctor
[email protected]