Airports prepare for snow as temperatures plunge
With temperatures across Britain set to plunge this weekend, air passengers will once again run the risk of flight cancellations and delays due to snow and ice.
Heathrow Airport, which was slated by the public in December 2010 when heavy snowfall brought its runways to a grinding halt, has since spent £36 million beefing up its ‘winter resilience programme’.
Gatwick has spent £8 million on additional snow clearing vehicles over the past two years, doubling the size of its fleet to 98.
A Gatwick spokeswoman said: "As with any weather situation, safety comes first and we would of course need time to clear the runway and taxiways to make it safe for aircrafts to land and take off.
"However, with our new kit this will happen a lot more quickly and our aim is always to make sure our passengers can get away as speedily as possible."
Edinburgh has spent £2m since 2010 upgrading its standby fleet in order to react to snow. "Although snow is forecast this weekend we are confident that, in the event of severe weather, we are fully prepared to react in order to avoid passenger disruption," said an Edinburgh Airport spokesman.
At Heathrow £11 million has gone on new vehicles and equipment and £10 million on aircraft de-icer and facilities.Some of the extra cash has been spent on ‘passenger welfare’ and the airport has almost quadrupled the number of staff who will be on duty each shift to provide severe weather support.
It has also more than doubled the number of snow clearing vehicles.
However, unlike in autumn 2010 when the airport boasted of its ability to stay open in all weather, Heathrow is not promising passengers there won’t be any disruption should it be hit by severe weather this winter.
"Heathrow is the world’s busiest two runway airport and is effectively full. This means that unlike at other airports, flights affected by closing the runway can’t be moved to later in the day because there are no gaps in the schedule," it said.
"Severe weather will always have a much more serious impact at Heathrow than at other airports.
"When severe disruption is expected, a decision may be made to reduce the flight schedule in advance in order to introduce slack into the system and improve resilience.
"The airlines will then decide which flights to cancel."
The Met Office is forecasting snow during the course of Saturday, mainly across more eastern parts of Wales and the southwest Midlands, and much lower temperatures next week.
Meanwhile the Middle East has been hit by some of the worst snow storms in a decade, which have left a number of dead.
Heavy snow in Istanbul forced Turkish Airlines to cancel a number of flights and parts of Israel, the Palestinian territories, the Jordan capital of Amman and Jersusalem are blanketed in snow.
The BBC said five French tourists were injured when their minibus overturned on snow-covered mountain roads in the Sinai Peninsula.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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