http://static.pprune.org/images/statusicon/post_old.gif Today, 17:52 #12 (permalink) Rightbase

BAA or BBC?
I've just heard the BBC report BAA as saying the snow ploughs have been working all day. The problem is they have so much snow they don't know where to put it.

Suggestions?

To be fair, remember most of the airfield is already covered with it.


Rightbase. I can help. 3 suggestions....
1. More kit
2. Get it off the surfaces.
3. If still too much, put what you scooped off into tipper trucks and take it away like they do in HEL.

There are many busy international airports that handle all a/c types and would have slowed but stayed functional today. They have had more practice. Machinery is cheap if you factor in ALL the costs. Today would have paid for some ploughs and labour and been a one day payback. No business plan required.

The third runway at LHR is necessary for increased capacity and spacing. Just please include a few bits of kit if poss?...and maybe some people that know what they are doing?

The theme?

You just have to know what you are doing. Then you don't think there is snow 'everywhere' and no possible solution.

Snow and ice is a huge problem but maybe all the talk of global warming has stopped people thinking it can ever be cold?

Solution: Use the diggers to scoop the odd bunch of Plane Stupid supporters off the taxiways and utilisation increases to a point where it is now economic to invest in such devices?

G

Is it really so difficult to cope with 3 or 4 inches of snow? AFAIK LHR prouds itself to be one of the busiest airports in the world and it gets paralyzed by an amount of snow which would hardly get noticed in many other countries? Don`t they have any ploughs there?

Anyways, that`s just my humble opinion...

If only there was as much as 3 or 4 inches of snow - it usually only takes 1/2 an inch to cause chaos. Having checked the BBC video it looks as if it's about an inch at worst on the taxiway.

Yet again this is superb confirmation of the absolute lunacy of putting all your transport eggs in the one basket [case] of Heathrow.

Inadequate equipment provided to keep if operating under conditions which would barely be remarkable in other parts of the world and which have happened there before, and when some snow falls everyone is SO that it can't cope! I can only hope that the diverted passengers hit BA/BAA for enough compensation & the non BAA divert airports hit them for punitive landing fees, that it might bring them to their respective commercial senses and get them to think about the wisdom of at least two or even better three geographically distributed medium sized hubs over a single creaking, overloaded, cramped and hamstrung hub. Maybe of this happens some good might come out of this shameful event.

Heathrow snow
 

Donkey
Sorry to disappoint you but I live about 6 miles south of EGLL and I have a foot + of snow dumped overnight !!

Fair enough, I don't dispute what might be lying on your doorstep, but the airport fire crew & recovery squad are plainly not struggling through deep stuff in the video on the BBC News website.

My point is the inability of the UK transport infrastructure to operate under anything other than the most benign of weather conditions.

A colleague was in southern Norway last week, between five p.m. and ten at night about eighteen inches fell where we have our main european base. The bus timetable wasn't even disturbed, the trains still ran exactly to time, yet we get a light dusting and the world comes to an end.

Ok if you lot owned Heathrow how many million pounds would you spend on snow clearing equipment and staff that you would use perhaps once every 10 years?

No, it's only the South-East that comes to an end. My train from Manchester this morning was on time until about Wembly, then lost ten minutes from there into Euston. London in general came to a stop for less snow than I happily walked to school through when I were a lad and we had real winters.

I agree that UK needs multiple hubs. Even now, and in good weather, it can be quicker to get into the air from central London through BHX than through LHR when you take travel time and time through security, etc. into account. Who needs to wait five or more years for runway 3 and T6?

SnowPlowing is easy !
 

I am sure that LHR has plenty of lorries etc. used for other things that could have a snowplow mounted. So instead of paying for the whole truck you just pay for a plow that is removable and easy to store. Then you train several dozen operators for the unlikely event and away you go. Additionally you could contract with a trucking company or heavy equip company to be on call. This has proven to work in other airports where snowfall is a rare reality.

This does not cost millions and should be a requirement if you have any possibility of snow during the year. It is afterall a safety issue.

Besides what else do all those landing fees go to pay for !!

However you would need to have Type IV de-ice available not just Type I.

Cheers

FG

Bring back the Mobile runway de-icers.......Two RR Derwents side by side with a little woode hut in the middle of it for the operator all being pushed by a fuel bowser......well it used to work when I had one to look after in the 70's.
Played havok with the tarmac though when setting them up for the winter outside the hanger!!!!!

What a lot of know-alls on here don't seem to consider is what happens when the staff can't get to work? You can't just go and drag people off the streets; they need to be trained. If the people can't get there it doesn't matter how many snow ploughs and other gear you've got. What's the answer? Train lots of people and have them sitting around for 20 years doing nothing until it snows again? The difference between the Scandinavian Airports and us is that they have snow almost every day whereas we don't.

Or possibly, as a senior manager, have a severe weather plan involving trained people paid a supplement to sleep in accomodation at the airport overnight when a severe weather warning is issued by the infallible met. office?

But what would I know, I'm only a PPL, glider pilot and oil industry manager.

When did the snow clearing start? Other reputable airports had the ploughs, etc working overnight.

fergineer,
OK for de-icing as you say, but the LHR problem was ploughing.

p.s. Wasn't, perchance, you who wound up the jets just as I rode a horse around the corner of the hangar one weekend long ago :O:ooh:

Farce.
 

Arrived at Hthrw yesterday(as a passenger) after a 2 hour hold some where over southern England. I phoned a friend who works at that airport in the grnd team. They had been given notice of the snow fall on the friday and it had been suggested that the equipment should be checked, this was turned down by the management as would mean additional cost in overtime for the crews who look after the tractors and ploughs.
Consequently only 30% of the equipment worked when started up and there was insufficient people to operate this serviceable equipment, as the pre- winter training had not been carried out, again because of the cost. egg on someones face I think!!

Too Much Snow
 

Simple solution.

Apply heat. Snow melts. Pour it down the drain or keep it for next summer.
Problem Solved!

HeliAl,

I overheard 2 BAA chaps on the bus saying something similar. They said that even though the snow had been forecast for days, the management had not planned any snow clearing coverage in advance, and only started calling people in on the day !!.

I hope the airlines seek compensation from Bloody Awful Airports.

:ugh:

HEATHROW DIRECTOR said.............................


"The difference between the Scandinavian Airports and us is that they have snow almost every day"



No we don`t. Our Summer lasts from July 31st to August 1st and it almost never snows.

Here it comes again!
 

LHR due for round two of snow clearing tonight....wonder if they'll do any better this time?
It would have to be said that TFL did even worse in our capital city; public transport is a fairly fundamental requirement of any country that wants to be taken seriously.....evidently we're not that bovvered!

I hope HEATHROW DIRECTOR is just his PpruNe monicker, because with a can't do attitude like his, we aren't going to get far.