Snow and Heathrow

I hope this is OK to post. It is from an email sent out to me and many others so I hope the copyright isn't affected. Please feel free to remove if it isn't.

It is an Americans view on the BAA snow situation.


A BAA Snow Job? BAA - the owners of Heathrow Airport - mightn't be any good at removing four inches of snow from their airport, but it seems they're great at another type of snow job - creating a mindless bureaucratic 'forensic' investigation into what went wrong with their endless delays prior to Christmas after the mere 4" of snow, and determining what to do in the future to prevent re-occurrences. They've announced a panel of independent experts who will be free to examine any and all BAA records and is charged with reporting back to BAA with implementable recommendations.

No doubt BAA hopes that by the time the panel comes up with a two hundred page report, complete with diagrams, appendices, charts and spreadsheets, and full of ponderous technical language, the fuss about their poor performance will have largely melted.

But let me save BAA however much money it is they're investing into this panel of experts. Your problem was simple - you didn't have enough snow removal equipment to get rid of the snow that fell, and you didn't have enough de-icer, which wasn't applied sufficiently and soon enough.

How to prevent it happening in the future? Ummm - how about you maintain a larger fleet of snow removal equipment and keep a larger store of de-icing fluid? Oh - and perhaps you also have someone who is in charge of checking the weather forecast every day or two, and buy him a transistor radio to monitor the weather reports on. If snow is predicted, well, ummm, could you maybe prepare for it in advance?

This was a totally simple failure, and allows for a totally simple solution. But there is actually a nuance to be considered in terms of deciding just how culpable BAA is for its appalling performance.

The slightly more complicated question is what level of snow fall should any airport be able to conveniently handle? And let's not express it in inches, which can be misleading, as is also the reference to other airports that stay open with no interruption while experiencing 4" (or much more) of snow falls.

The big issue is not managing snow, but rather spending and gearing up to be prepared for a certain level/probability of snow falling. The northern European airports that regularly have 4" of snow falling, sometimes even several times a week, of course are prepared to manage that 'normal' event for them. That is a reasonable expectation and response.

But you'd not expect the airport in Cancun to be able to manage 4" of snow a day, and would excuse it if by some chance it did snow there and the airport closed in confusion.

It appears that the 4" of snow that fell at Heathrow was actually an unusual and relatively extreme event for Heathrow (and the airport planners). So rather than specify an ability to handle so many inches of snow (whether it be common or uncommon), let's consider instead what an airport should be able to manage in terms of the extreme nature of the snow

It's not only Heathrow who should take responsiblity - they have to have an agreed "Snow Plan" with the CAA (Government)

Airports snow plans are usually available on the net.
eg
MAN
LHR

Interesting that the LHR plan includes the cellphone numbers of the staff responsible .....

As one of those unlucky passengers effected by the closure of the airport that Saturday afternnon, we were diverted to Brussels and subsequebntly returned to our initial departing airport, and then arriving 2 days later to an airport still in chaos I can only presume that that had no plan of action. They deserve all the criticism they get as it was a complete shambles.

Upon landing we had to wait 45 minutes to be allocated a gate as they had not cleared the snow away, 2 days after it snowed for 1hr. Baggage then took another 50 minutes to arrive due to the adverse weather conditions!!!!

Iain

BAA snow plan = Hope it doesn't snow, that goes for the rest of the UK really

BA did not help themselves or BAA or their pax by cancelling so many flights and not moving their planes from the stands so BAA could clear the snow and Ice. Then it was a bit rich of BA to complain of snow/ice bound stands.

It's not fair to compare LHR with AMS/CDG/FRA etc etc etc because they had problems too (not much said about this on the media). They also have more runways than LHR so can clear one whilst another is used and then switch around and can thus maintain a more regular service. This can't happen at LHR (or LGW).

BA and other airlines (even the Government) are now demanding that BAA spend £££ to get new equipment etc. This is a perfectly valid view but how do these airlines square that demand to spend ££ when they complain about the landing charges that actually pay for this equipment.

This is a similar argument that is used against local councils. People demand more ploughs and that every street is gritted but when it comes down to it they are simply not prepared to pay the cost of all this.

There is some validity in looking at how differently we get snow to some other places - there's big difference between dry snow that lands and is then ploughed away vs wet snow in sub zero temperatures that freezes and is more difficult to deal with.

That said, the writer is undoubtedly correct, get more equipment, more de-icer, and get out there at the right time to deal with it. I'm just glad that this time I wasn't affected, but 2010 was a bit of a year of it with snow here, in the US, volcanos, etc.

BA did not help themselves or BAA or their pax by cancelling so many flights and not moving their planes from the stands so BAA could clear the snow and Ice. Then it was a bit rich of BA to complain of snow/ice bound stands.

Tonty - it amazes me how BA has escaped approbrium, their act of cancelling and leaving planes iced to stands that could not be then swept and de-iced was a major causal factor.