Munich Airport has more than 600 employees working with special equipment to battle ice and snow, deploying up to 172 winter services employees with special vehicles for every shift, ensuring uninterrupted flight operations on the runways, taxiways and aprons.
The two runways and the taxiways are constantly cleared of ice and snow by a total of 22 air blast sweepers and six snowplows, as well as with sprayers and grit spreading vehicles. It only takes 25 minutes to clear a runway at Munich Airport.
The Munich Airport winter services can draw on a pool of 672 employees. A total of 47 permanent employees of FMG, from management or supervisory roles, are scheduled to support flight-crews. The backbone of the airport’s winter services staff includes 490 farmers and truckers from the immediate vicinity of the airport. They are called in to clear snow and truck it to dumping areas, working with more than 155 of their own vehicles.
The winter services fleet has approximately 197 vehicles for non-public and public areas. The areas to be cleared at Munich Airport amounts to over 4 million square meters—more than the total area of New York’s Central Park. 89 sanding and snow clearing vehicles are used on the park positions alone.
The Winter Services crews can be put on the alert by Munich Airport’s traffic management center, which oversees monitoring the condition of the airport’s operational areas around the clock.
The traffic management center is supported by an ice detection early warning system that continually retrieves updated information from 18 measurement stations distributed across the airport. In addition, the braking coefficients on the runways are continually tested using special vehicles.
Photo credit: International Airport Review
