In this Buyer’s Assessment, Wolfgang Löhr, director of flight operations & winter services, and Markus Moi, head of winter services – aircraft movement areas at Flughafen Köln Bonn, operator of Germany’s Cologne-Bonn Airport, talk to Airside about the gateway’s decision to acquire further Aebi Schmidt snow clearing vehicles
The airport has opted to acquire 12 Aebi Schmidt TJS 630 Towed Jet Sweepers, two of which will be delivered in May next year and a further 10 in September 2019.
Moreover, Cologne-Bonn has also committed to becoming the launch customer for Aebi Schmidt’s new snow clearance training simulator. While that too is due to be delivered in its non-customised form in May next year, the layout of the airport is going to be programmed into the simulator subsequent to that, so it might not be at its full capability for its Cologne-Bonn trainees till some months after that.
The tender for the equipment acquisition dates back to April this year (and planning for the acquisition goes back as far as 2015), while Aebi Schmidt was declared the successful bidder only a few weeks ago – in early October. The tender took place within the strict requirements of European and German competition law, of course, ensuring that there was no inherent bias in the process.
Indeed, such are those requirements that, in a sense, there is very little ‘choice’ on Cologne-Bonn’s part as to the eventual successful bidder. The operator created a series of parameters of what it wanted from the equipment; how the bidders score against those parameters is then compared to the price each of them quote and the best ratio derived from that represents the successful bid.
Thus it was that Aebi Schmidt “best met the various parameters laid out in the tender”, while also comparing favourably with the price quoted.
One of the big plusses of the TJS units is the width of operation they offer. Cologne-Bonn’s current CJS equipment sweep only half the width of the main runway before having to turn around for another pass down the strip to clear the other half of the surface. The TJS units will be able to clear the full width of the runway in one pass.
Eight of the CJS machines operated by Cologne-Bonn will be sold and replaced by the Towed Jet Sweepers, as will some other snow clearing equipment currently used by the airport. Five CJS units will be retained. Cologne-Bonn’s snow clearance fleet will continue to consist of 17 sweepers: currently comprising 13 Aebi Schmidt CJS machines and four of another manufacturer (Bucher Schoerling), by the end of next year the fleet is expected to consist of five CJS and 12 TJS units. (The airport also has six John Deere tractors equipped with a snow blade and sprayer that clear areas that are difficult to access.)
Cologne-Bonn – which first acquired Aebi Schmidt equipment as far back as the 1950s – has been “very happy and satisfied” with the CJS equipment, Löhr and Moi confirm. But the TJS sweepers represent another step up in utility, they believe, particularly because of their wider 6.3m clearing width.
Another benefit of employing Aebi Schmidt equipment is the after-sales support that is provided by the company to operators such as Cologne-Bonn, Löhr and Moi suggest. Aebi Schmidt’s engineers are highly experienced and very capable, they observe, and are quick to react to any maintenance or repair needs.
The snow clearance equipment at Cologne-Bonn Airport may not be used that frequently, but it is soon brought into action when needed. The gateway has to deal with between perhaps six and a dozen snow events a year on average, with as many as 20 such events over a particularly harsh winter, Löhr and Moi estimate.
To deal with those snowfalls, Cologne-Bonn has a team of up to 180 employees who are trained in winter operations. Many of them will be trained to operate the new TJS equipment, though not all (they are complex machines, and to train all 180 would be unnecessarily expensive and time-consuming).
Cologne-Bonn’s own employees are used pretty much exclusively to respond to snow events, although in the past external contractors have been called in as and when required; this is an option that the airport authority might return to in the future, Löhr and Moi report.
