Anyone flying out this weekend getting worried?

skiracer wrote:IT'S ONLY LIKE THIS BECAUSE WE PUT UP WITH IT!! Why don't we complain more often and in greater detail to those who take/don't take the decisions so that some notice is taken of what 'The Silent Majority' actually want/demand.

Couldn't agree more. That kind of sums Britain up if you want to broaden this into a wider political discussion, which I really don't think is a good idea. We've put up with far too much, so much so that its gone too far to be reversed. I admire the French for one thing, and that is taking to the streets en masse if they feel strongly.
Over here, we get students and rent a mob smashing things up, the the media forget that they have valid reasons to protest and discuss why they cause damage. In France they have riots in the streets, burn scores of cars....and yet our youth is supposedly the worst in the world. Joke.

Anyway, nice idea, but it won't happen. Remember, we're one of the few nations who likes to queue.

How does the government and local authority fund Heathrow, et al?

Edit: Jon Snow has just tweeted this "BAA banning pictures of the distress inside Heathrow: urge anyone you know in tnhere to feed us their pix www.channel4.com/news    ta!"

BAA are going to come out of this badly. I wonder if it will lower numbers through their airports. I doubt it.

If Gatwick bought a couple of fully equipped Boschung Jetbrooms http://www.boschung.com/index.php?id=362&L=1 then 4 million a piece is not out of the way http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e-1nXV6xkA

Sky had to get a hidden camera inside the terminal as BAA wouldnt allow them in to film. Interesting.
Even more interesting, BAA tried to get people to delete photos they'd posted on facebook of conditions inside.
How odd.

The cost allocation is that the operators are responsible for de-icing the planes, and the airport owner is responsible for keeping the runways and taxiways clear.
Helsinki is not the only airport that performs well. Stockholm-A have not had an airport closure due to snow in 50 years.
Helsinki, clears a runway in 4 minutes, Stockholm between 6-8 minutes. Both airports operate with 40 to 50 clearing staff. Stockholm has only 18 Plough/Sweeper/Blower machines. Helsinki has a few more.
Heathrow has in excess of 100 clearing staff.
All 3 airports are owned by companies, Helsinki~ Fiavia, Stockholm-A~ Swedavia, Heathrow~ BAA.

It clearly needs to be a partnership approach:
The airport authority would need to commit to runway clearing equipment. By comparison, it has sufficient staff.
Aircraft operators would need to do better in getting it's aircraft de-iced, other countries do better.
The transport authority ought to be able to keep the motorways and approach roads clear, and rail transport operational. Other countries do better.

It isn't rocket science, but it is science. We do not have many engineers and scientists in government. None, in fact.

All of the UK aircraft companies involved will feel a cost kickback to their balance sheets, and shareholders should be asking critical questions. The real cost the the economy is likely to be 3~ 6 times as much as the direct cost.

Minneapolis/St Paul airport recently had over 120 snow clearing vehicles for a 50cm dump, but still ended up closing for a few hours. It's a fraction of the size of Heathrow.

As I was saying before in another thread, most of the vehicles used for snow plowing/clearing in the US are multipurpose. When every operation these days in the UK is subcontracted, it unrealistic to expect contractors to use more expensive multiple use vehicles. Also, it takes training to efficiently, and safely drive one, and a lot of planing/weather co-ordination to set routes, and priorities. So it isn't just having the equipment, but paying to train people from other jobs to use it, even in no snow years.

Aircraft de-icing trucks on the other hand, look to be a very specialist piece of equipment. I wouldn't expect UK airports to have enough for these conditions.

I'm not convinced that the responsibility should automatically default to sub-contractors simply because they are employed for other duties. It leaves room for the outcome you describe i.e. if the sub-contractor can't manage it then it doesn't get done. It's typical 'tail wagging the dog'. If the vehicles must be multi-purpose, and the obstacle is that those other purposes are sub-contracted out, then maybe that set up is no longer fit for purpose and needs to be reconsidered.

I've no doubt that it does take specific skills to operate the machinery. But I don't believe that this should be a deal breaker either. If it's not viable to train and maintain skills in the UK, there's no reason why they shouldn't be imported from mainland Europe as and when required. Granted it wouldn't be cheap, but then again how expensive can it be to keep XX drivers on a retainer for 3 months of every year? The cost would surely pale in comparison to the impact of a grid locked country, and in comparison to the profits turned by the airline industry (despite the current climate). It's successfully done in other industries, using people from much further afield, which have barely a fraction of the funding available in this sector.

Logistical practicalities like route planning and priorities would need to be learned, but that's not impossible. We can learn from countries that already have the knowledge.

Maybe my points are a bit idealistic, I just believe that it's too easy to find reasons not to do stuff.

Emma, that's kinda what I was getting at. All the public street, and highway plows here are owned and operated either by the town, county, or state. They find plenty for those trucks to do the rest of the year. As for drivers, At county and state level, everyone from senior managers, dispatchers, to mechanics are trained to drive during snow emergencies. So the plows can operate 24 hours a day. It's not like we get a lot of snow every year, but when we do....