Snow closes Geneva Airport

Yeah I agree they have no excuse. Don't agree that we have one though. Not even a small little snowflake sized one. The Government are supposed to sort this out. That's what we pay them for - to keep the country ticking over and generally stop it grinding to a halt in circumstances that are foreseeable.

EmmaEvs wrote:Yeah I agree they have no excuse. Don't agree that we have one though. Not even a small little snowflake sized one. The Government are supposed to sort this out. That's what we pay them for - to keep the country ticking over and generally stop it grinding to a halt in circumstances that are foreseeable.

It has always been the same for as long as I can remember, the only change is they don't grit the back roads ....... little sods :lol:

The simple truth is that in this country they local authorities do not invest enough money in keeping the roads clear.
When a road like the M25 gets closed/blocked, you know we've got problems. From what I can see on roads at the moment, the main A roads and local roads are simply being abandoned by the authorities.

The photos at Geneva reminded me of my trip to ADH in January when we ended up sleeping there after being diverted en route to Grenoble. It happens, not a lot anyone can do.

Tony_H wrote:The simple truth is that in this country they local authorities do not invest enough money in keeping the roads clear.

Yup. Absolutely.

I don't know that it's a lack of financial investment, so much as lack of planning, and too much road construction being subcontracted out. The snowploughs that abound in snowy countries, don't sit idly for the other several months of the year. To be cost effective, those trucks have to work all year. If all road construction is contracted out, where are you going to use the snowplough convertible trucks in the summer? No contractor is going to invest big money in making private lorries snowplough ready.

I think the answer would be some creative contracts, that would force road contractors to use, and pay for local/national government owned snowplough ready lorries, which would be commandeered for snow emergencies.

There must be 25+ cm down at the lake in geneva by now maybe even more. Take a look at the webcams.

http://www.camvista.com/watch-live-video/europe/switzerland/geneva_live_webcam.html


Now shut until at least 6pm tonight, but the way it is snowing, it could be a lot later.

Just heard there is about 50cm+ on the hills nearby and the snow is still coming down.

I dont get why Gatwick and Edinburgh airports closed, when they've had less snow than many European airports.

Oh yeah, I forget, this is the UK.

Update: So at least on the second night (Wed) we got to a hotel paid for by easyJet, albeit 30Kms away, as all the local hotels are full. This morning (Thu), flights were taking off from GVA but all those to Gatwick and Heathrow were cancelled, plus those where airlines didn't have anything on the ground at GVA. One problem on Tues was that the Taxi drivers stayed at home or wouldn't do any journeys outside the area, so even if you had a hotel reservation, you didn't stand much chance of getting there unless there was a shuttle bus. In the end, staying in the terminal was probably the best solution. We're back at our apartment in the Trois Vallees, although car hire rates are extortionate due to the shortage of vehicles. We're on the first scheduled Gatwick flight from GVA on Saturday lunchtime. I hope.

My main gripes aren't to do with the infrastructure but that the 1. the airport authorities closed large parts of the facilities overnight e.g. shifting people out of Starbucks with a 5-person police escort into the Departure area (where there was nothing) and 2. that easyJet kept very quiet about the fact that you could get them to organise a hotel and taxi at their expense and left it to the airport authorities to either put people into a bunker (sic) or coorrdinate private hotel reservations. It was only because we made friends with a friendly French student that we discovered we could get easyJet to organise and pay for these.