A runway hit by a snow flake. AAIB investigating now. BBC top story.
 

What is it with the Brits and snow? 90% of the airports seize up and shut down, METARS with SNOCLO, Notams issued, emissaries sent out. Meanwhile, I look out my window and see, well, just a normal wintery day with some snow on the ground.

Lydd, my local field is SNOCLO. Yet, it's a sunny day here on the coast, less than an inch of snow on the ground, if even. The cars and trains run. But not the airfield. Oh no, that needs to get shut down immediately and stay shut!

Look at the METARS for ESSA os any other northern European airports and you'll see they run fine. If ESSA can stay open in -20 with drifting snow, surely some bright chap could figure out how to run Heathrow?

Don't they have snow ploughs? Don't they know that a bit of patchy ice isn't that big a deal? We're not taking off by powering the wheels, now are we? I used to regularly land on short runways made on frozen lakes and lo and behold, I'm still alive.

I just don't get it. I think they need the Royal Marines to start to run the airports and snow clearing. Or, god forbid, could it be that all the officials are secretly relishing getting a couple of days off now that the airports are closed? Subversive thought, but sometimes one wonders...
:ouch:

It would appear it is raining in California

Southland slogs through storm system of a decade - latimes.com

:p

I used to fly to British Airports a lot. Their management is pretty poor. They hide their inability to run an airport by quoting safety the whole time. That is also the reason why I never buy conecting flights in the winter, that go through London. Any other country seem to be more prepared. I think that the UK empire already hit the glory days long time ago.

Yes, the British disease.

In the UK, it is easy to recruit any number of useless little men who think they are really important and get a lot of satisfaction from banning something.

You can do the same elsewhere but elsewhere they tend to ignore the rules :)

A few minutes at LGW or LHR makes it obvious to any businessman how bad the management is and what an empire building exercise the whole setup has become.

<<You can do the same elsewhere but elsewhere they tend to ignore the rules >>

And aviation in the UK stays safe....

As opposed to .............. ????

“And aviation in the UK stays safe”

Yes – Grounded! The rest of the world must be ever so impressed.

Rod1

OMG
 

Yes HD, with that you have just summed it up nicely.:mad::mad::mad:

Obviously totally lost in the irony:hmm:

Heathrow,

Erm... that sounds exactly like the approach/attitude the other poster was alluding to.

You should see the Ukrainians just get on with it in -20 and below. Small houses are completely obliterated by the snow and the airports just doggedly keep going, ops normal. Aircraft aren't continuously going off the edges either.

In Kiev they have this antique jet strapped onto the back of a lorry. It's angled side- and downwards. Boris, Sergey and Oleg take turns cruising around the runways, taxiways and aprons with this contraption. Boy does it get rid of contamination, as well as any FOD (including small piston aircraft and stray dogs) Sounds satisfyingly politically incorrect/un-green too. Maybe the U.K. could send some management-types over for lessons? (oops, sorry, they can't because the airports are all so safe and closed, silly me...)

Well, I must have acquired a beginning of a reputation for chiding the Brits in general and their world of flying in particular - but to be honest my own national airport is at the point of practically closing down for lack of deicing glycol, not very impressive either. Rather ridiculous in fact, seeing the amounts of effort and money spent to keep the runways operational.

To my eyes the problem seems to be quite general in Europe, not limited to aviation nor to any single country. Take France, disallowing entry of all trucking from abroad. And indeed from the former socialist countries I hear mostly "business as usual" - meaning "like each winter". We're simply loosers, here in Western Europe: economically we're second to China, physically to Russians and their neighbours, and probably to many more.

Seems pretty ridiculous to me, especially considering that there hasn't been any fresh snowfall here in the last 2 days - wtf?

Once again, we're the laughing stock of Europe. So good to be British :ok:

If LGW or LHR got half of their yellow jackered Awfully Self Important "security" people to each pick up a shovel, they would have the snow cleared in no time at all.

But it is much easier to build an empire based on Safety or Security than on snow clearance :)

And here I was thinking I would be shot down in flames as a foreigner criticizing, but instead you all agree with me!
;)

...as already mentioned 5 replies earlier ...

Maybe they could get someone from Buffalo Airways to show them how it's done.................

They host the EU HQ so this sounds reasonable.

Somebody nicked all the deicer to lubricate the typewriters knocking out the doctored committee Minutes.

I took the kids to lapland this time last year and they where ploughing the runway at Enoticio before we landed , and de iced the plane and ploughed again for take off !

You must have been a strong parent to get your kids to that degree of discipline - ploughing the runway pre-landing!

First of all, i would say its slightly harsh to completely write off us Brits at being completely useless when it comes to any form of wintry weather. We are lumbered with a temperate climate which makes it hard to predict whats going to happen from one week to the next at this time of year. Im certain that there's plenty of other countries on this planet that would succumb to the same sorts of difficulties in which we seem to be faced with at present......excluding Scandanavia, Russia and Alaska of course!