 Poster: A snowHead
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"Weather warning - updated flight schedules
Due to adverse weather across the UK and Europe, Heathrow is operating a reduced flight schedule today. If you are travelling today or over the next couple of days, please check your flight’s status with your airline before setting out and allow extra time for your journey to the airport as the road and rail networks may be affected."
http://www.heathrowairport.com/
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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THankfully I live in Scotland and know what a weather forecast and a wee bit of snow is.
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Yeah, well. In one of the big - and clearly forecasted snowfalls in Glasgow a year or so ago some silly moo who was stuck for hours in her car with a small baby and no food for it, blamed everybody but herself. The problem, it seemed, was the forecast had said that very heavy and disruptive snowfall would start around mid morning, but it started a couple of hours earlier.  Always somebody else's fault, eh what?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Not sure the country has really ground to a halt? There was a chap on the radio this morning (not literally, he'd have broken it) at some roundabout in Cambridge being asked what the situation was like. Pretty much ok was his reply (which doesn't make a great headline). "People cope reasonably well with cold weather and light snow! Not everything quite to plan, but by and large ok. Shock."
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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It isn't actually snowing at Heathrow but they are cancelling flights?
After spending £32 million on stuff to keep them open in bad weather.
It is embarrasssing, and I wont be a happy bunny if it affects my travel to the Grand Massif next Satruday 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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elgrego, not only is not snowing, there has been a huge and rapid thaw going on since daybreak. Gits.
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Well, to be fair, they need to take action ahead of forecast below zero weather. With a take off every 45 seconds or something, it does seem likely that any problems, such as the need for de-icing all planes, will reduce the numbers they can cope with. Either they have to wait for it all to hit the fan, or they have to make planned pre-emptive cancellations.
They can't win, either way - I'm glad I'm not running Heathrow Airport!
We lack capacity, but nobody wants to bit the bullet and build more airports.
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| Pedantica wrote: |
| elgrego, not only is not snowing, there has been a huge and rapid thaw going on since daybreak. Gits. |
I'm just panicking cos I'm flying out from Heathrow next Saturday 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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We lack capacity, but nobody wants to bit the bullet and build more airports.
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abso-bloody-lutely.
Flippin' do-goders.
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We were in Reading this morning, there was still some snow about, and lots of slush, but passing Heathrow on M4 it looked like there was very little.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Heathrow took a deliberate decision in advance and based on concerns about potential for fog as much as snow. Apparently by doing it sooner rather than later they hoped to give people a better chance to rebook.
"By cancelling flights in advance airlines have been able to rebook some people onto flights that are departing, and passengers have had better quality information about whether they can fly or not."
I think there's some logic to that and it ties in with aspects of the review they launched after last winter "The inquiry will certainly examine the support offered to stranded passengers, how to minimise the number of people arriving for flights that do not depart, and how to give reliable information in fast-changing circumstances." So by canceling flights before the forecast weather they were at least in part aiming to reduce people stranded at the airport.
Crucially the key target Heathrow now has is:
"that the airport never closes as a result of circumstances under its control, except for immediate safety or other emergency threats." [Begg Report ]
So the key risk they seem to want to avoid is having to completely close the airport. Reducing flights may be a way of avoiding complete closure. And doing it in advance seems to have been aimed at reducing the amount of people caught up waiting at the airport. Trying to deal with lots of frustrated people at the airport must take up a lot of resources, which could have knock on impact on running the airport as a whole.
In the end they seem to have had to reduce the expected number of flights departing from 70% to 50% during the day.
Although I can sort of see the logic in keeping people away from the airport, taking preemptive action and sacrificing some flights to keep the show on the road it does still seem that what wasn't that serious in terms of weather had quite an impact.
Part of Heathrow's reasoning is that this makes the case for a third runway, that they run at 99% and therefore have so little slack they can't manage even limited disruption (of course one might suspect that BAA may have broader reasons for wanting to make that argument).
The £32 million number is interesting. It's very unclear that this has been spent as opposed to budgeted.
On 11 January 2011 Heathrow announced that they had "made a further £10 million available for new equipment, including snowploughs, blowers and tractors, and the people to operate them."
On 24 March 2011 Heathrow announced "it is developing a £50 million Heathrow resilience investment plan, which it will recommend to airlines and the Civil Aviation Authority in April."
Even at this stage (presumably before the £50 million investment) Heathrow claimed.
"- Today, Heathrow has 166 individual pieces of snow-clearing equipment, including sweepers, de-icers, blowers, gritters, under-wing tractors and snow removal lorries. This compares to 47 in December.
- The airside operations team now has 269 people available and trained to support snow-clearing operations, compared to 117 in December."
On 29 September 2011 Heathrow announced. "So far we have committed to investing £32.4 million in implementing the recommendations."
"- Tripled the number of vehicles available for snow clearance compared to December 2010, with a total fleet of 185 vehicles.
- Increased the total number of staff available for snow clearance from 117 to 468 per shift."
Though that seems to suggest the number of vehicles only increased by 19 during summer 2011 compared to 119 between December 2010 and March 2011.
Looking back according to Channel 4 News.
"A BAA spokeswoman for Heathrow told Channel 4 News that last year it invested three times as much in snow clearing equipment - spending £1.5m mainly on de-icing fluid and storage for the fluid (each de-icer vehicle holds 60,000 litres).
BAA said it spent its snow budget of half a million pounds on new electronic gauges to remotely measure de-icing levels, which helps to speed up the process of ordering de-icer.
BAA told Channel 4 News: "There is £6m worth of snow and ice fighting technology in operation at Heathrow airport. An extra £500k was invested this year alone to upgrade equipment. In line with our planned investment for the airport, we are looking to spend an additional £3m on this airfield equipment in the next four years."
However, Channel 4 News understands that the £500,000 is not an extra spend for the year, it is the only spend for 2010 within a pre-decided 5-year investment programme that is approved by the Civil Aviation Authority."
What's interesting there is the massive, absolutely massive increase in budget (£500,000 to £50 million). Though it is unclear over what timescale and how that budget breaks down and actually how much has actually been spent.
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Brussels airport isn't much better, a couple of inches fell over the course of Friday afternoon and we ended up an hour late departing due to waiting for the one and only de-icing unit on duty to get round to doing our plane
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You know it makes sense.
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You would rather be a bit late and be de-iced though......
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| In the end they seem to have had to reduce the expected number of flights departing from 70% to 50% during the day. |
But we don't know how many of these are because the inbound aircraft simply never arrived. Loads of other European airports were having troubles.
How did Gatwick do ?
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Poster: A snowHead
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After 2 glorious days in Ste Foy we were booked on 21.30 ex Geneva to Gatwick was advised by the easyjet desk @ Geneva the flight was due in @22.50. So we went for a pizza arrived back at airport @ 21.50 and we were advised to go directly to the gate, once through security an announcement was made that the flight was now going to Lyon due to the 23.00 hrs curfew @ Geneva. The flight left Lyon @ 02.40 this morning and we got back to Burnham @ 05.00 this morning.
We were also held up at Eurotunnel early January! I am now hoping all goes well for our forthcoming weekend in Chatel @ the beginning of March.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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A friend of mine was stuck in a plane on the runway at heathrow for 8 hours then disembarked, sat in the terminal, got back on and finally took off after another 23 hours. Total delay was 31 hours.
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FAQ
