Gatwick wins battle of the snowploughs

 

Gatwick airport claimed a small victory in UK airports’ battle with wintry weather, as the last-minute arrival of extra snowploughs helped it to reopen its runways more than a day ahead of BAA-owned London rival Heathrow.

Snow caused transport chaos across the UK, with thousands of air passengers left stranded on one of the busiest travel days before Christmas. Roads were so badly affected that more than half of some regions’ salt supplies for the winter have already been used up

The latest freeze is prompting transport operators to rethink their resources, with Gatwick and Heathrow increasing their investment in clearance equipment.

When snow hit the UK at the beginning of December, Gatwick bore the brunt of criticism from passengers, when abnormally large snowfalls forced the airport to close for two days.

This weekend, the airport was closed for four and a half hours on Saturday but reopened at 3pm, allowing more than 250 planes to take off and land on Sunday.

GIP, Gatwick’s owner, has spent an additional £1m on snow-clearing equipment since acquiring the airport from BAA a year ago, even receiving two extra snowploughs from Switzerland on Saturday morning. It plans to double its snow-clearing vehicles from 47 to 95, spending £8m before next winter.

"This is not a one-in-20-years event. It’s going to be more frequent than that, as the last few weeks have shown," said a Gatwick airport spokesperson. "We are pleased with how we’ve coped with this more recent snowfall."

Some airlines praised Gatwick’s response. Nonetheless, hundreds of Gatwick flights were cancelled as snow spread across Europe, restricting other airports.

At Heathrow, just a handful of flights took off on Sunday and the airport was closed to arrivals.

BAA has pledged to spend another £3m in the next two years to boost Heathrow’s 69-vehicle snow clearance fleet.

While BAA was able to clear one of Heathrow’s two runways, ice at the stands where passengers board aircraft prevented planes from departing.

The BAA spokesman said concentrated de-icing material had been used on Heathrow’s runways in preparation for the forecast snow "and we had prepared for a worst-case scenario".

"We then watched as five inches of snow fell on the airfield in a little more than an hour. That volume of snow will affect any airport in the world," he said.

BAA apologised for the disruption, saying it had to put safety first.

About 90 airlines use Heathrow but British Airways is the largest as it is based at the airport and makes up about 40 per cent of all operations. BA said it was "extremely sorry" about passengers’ inconvenience, offering refunds or alternative flight bookings.

None of the airport operators or airlines has yet attempted to calculate the cost of the disruption which comes at the end of a difficult year for the industry. The volcanic ash cloud in April cost BAA an estimated £5m to £6m per day.

One airline said costs would be difficult to determine until there have been two or three days of uninterrupted flights, when planes and staff have returned to their normal home airports.

Virgin said on Sunday it would be 24 to 48 hours before its planes were back in position, while EasyJet and Virgin were among the operators planning to lay on extra flights before Christmas.

In contrast, Britain’s rail service kept largely to its Sunday timetable with just a few delays and cancellations.

Network Rail, the company that runs Britain’s 9,000 miles of rail track, said it had used de-icer trains and kept "ghost trains", or empty passenger trains, running on the tracks overnight to keep the ice off.

More badly hit were Britain’s roads. Paul Watters, head of roads policy for AA, said the motoring service company was receiving 800 calls an hour.

 

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