WIN2018

Taking on the winter weather

For many airports around the world, snow clearance is not just a task for a few difficult days once in a while – it is a challenge facing airport authorities for a good part of the year, and requires plenty of planning before the worst of the weather arrives

In the USA’s biggest and coldest state – Alaska – the problem of snow and ice is a considerable one.
For those tasked with the job at Anchorage International Airport, no less than 33 million square feet of pavement have to be maintained all year round. The gateway’s Airfield Maintenance team maintains three primary runways which are 10,500 feet or longer, with the longest runway being over 12,000 feet long and 200 feet wide. In addition to Anchorage’s runways, it also has numerous taxiways, ramp space, parking areas and a gravel general aviation runway that all need to be kept free of ice and snow.
Over the course of an average year, Anchorage gets about 70 inches of snow, informs Josh Briggs, airfield maintenance assistant manager at the airport. “The last few years we have seen warmer temperatures and less snowfall, so the biggest challenge of late has been battling ice and freezing rain events,” he says.
Such as during the airport’s record year for snowfall (135 inches), the biggest challenges can be snow storage and recovery time after an event. “This means being able to clean up by hauling snow to the storage areas before the next event. If it snows day after day it is hard to get everything cleaned up before the next event begins,” Briggs explains.
Anchorage Airport has a large fleet of equipment to meet the challenge, operated by a well-drilled team to deal with all that snow. The maintenance team typically operates five or six ploughs with tow-behind brooms that sweep from the centreline out, doing one pass up the runway and then another back.
Accompanying them will be a blower to cast the berm that is put up over the airfield’s lights and a sand truck putting out sand or de-icing chemicals, depending on the temperature and conditions at the time. Plus, loaders on the ramp then push the snow into piles to be hauled to the airport snow dump once the weather event is over.
Anchorage has about 80 people in the maintenance team full-time: that complement includes mechanics and electricians. It also has 19 seasonal positions that come on line in October and stay in place until April to help deal with the adverse weather conditions.
These employees operate a fleet of 13 Oshkosh and M-B ploughs and brooms (as described on the previous page, ASH Group, parent company of Aebi Schmidt, acquired M-B Companies earlier this year). Plus, Briggs says: “We have 10 Oshkosh and M-B blowers. The loaders we use for snow are a mix of Volvo, John Deere and Caterpillar equipment and we have nine of those. We also have five sand trucks from several manufacturers, as well as three Tyler Ice liquid de-icing trucks and eight motor graders that are of Caterpillar and Volvo manufacture.”
The latest batch of snow-clearing equipment purchased by Anchorage consisted of ploughs and brooms from M-B, while other relatively recent purchases have included Caterpillar 988 and Volvo 350 loaders and 14M graders.
And the end result of all this: “The airport has never been closed for snow and we are a five-time Bernt Balchen Post Award winner in the Large Airport Snow Removal Programs category,” Briggs confirms.

All hands to the pump in Copenhagen
Across the Atlantic in northern continental Europe, the temperatures can get pretty low as well, especially in Scandinavia. The region’s busiest air gateway is Denmark’s Copenhagen Airport, which has quite some area to keep clear of the regular snow that is a feature of the region’s winter.
In fact, it has 632,000m2 of runway, 1,200,000m2 of taxiway, 550,000m2 of apron and 550,000m2 of roadway to keep clear of snow. As with Anchorage, it’s less about the quantity of snow as the type of snow and ice that is created by prevailing temperatures. “The challenge is that we have different kind of snow types,” reports Bent Sten Andersen, the airport’s section manager, Field Service.
“It all depends on the temperature when the snow is coming. We often have wet and heavy snow because of temperatures close to 0 degrees, but we can also have dry and light snow with lower temperatures.
“The big challenge is when the temperature goes from 0 to lower temperatures – and we suddenly have an ice problem – it changes a lot, and it is not always possible to predict. On average, we have 20 days of cleaning up snow, and 40 days with ice challenges [a year],” Andersen says.
And, like Anchorage Airport’s maintenance team, at Copenhagen: “During the winter season we have staff on call – they have a normal job in Field Service – but during evenings and nights they are on call.”
Plus, “At the command station there are management staff 24/7. In a case of ice and snow we will call them. This [team] consists of about 18 people, and if we can predict a larger amount of snow coming we will call in additional staff,” says Andersen.
“The basic team is 15 to 18 people on call. For a full set-up, we have 55 people. Some of them are from Field Service, and additional support [can come] from Fire & Rescue, the bus department and the baggage department. None of them are hired only for snow cleaning – they are volunteers.”
As for the snow clearance procedure itself, the three runways at Copenhagen represent the first priority; the taxiways and apron are the second priority.
Copenhagen Airport currently uses only snow clearance equipment manufactured by the Norwegian company Øveraasen. It has 16 RS 400 runway sweepers and six RS 200 smaller runway sweepers, as well as two snow blowers and two CAT wheel loaders.

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