Winter Time Operations and Snow Clearing
Since its opening Stockholm Arlanda has always managed to continue its operations during heavy snowfall and difficult weather. The airport administration claims to be world-leading at clearing snow from the runways. Arlanda has a policy to never close due to snowfall. Heavy snowfall can however cause delays. During heavy snowfall at least one runway stays open but in bad weather condition there may be delays even if flight operations continue at all times. Not just runways need to be cleared, aprons and aircraft parking areas need snow clearing as well. The airport has a total of 250 000 m2 to clear from snow and ice, at the same time as the aircraft continue taking off and landing. During the colder half of the year Stockholm Arlanda has about 65 seasonally hired snow removal staff. Together with permanent staff, they form a team of 100 people who provide snow removal services. Special routes are planned for sweeping teams, which clear each route at intervals of 35 to 45 minutes. The sweeping teams are directed via radio from the air traffic control tower. When snow removal is completed on each runway the surface is tested by a friction vehicle which measures friction value. The airport announces the friction value, and then it is each pilot who decides whether this value is sufficient for a landing. The friction value determines how often a runway must be ploughed and treated with anti-skid agent.
Read more about this topic: Stockholm Arlanda Airport
Famous quotes containing the words winter, time, operations, snow and/or clearing:
“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“We must be very suspicious of the deceptions of the element of time. It takes a good deal of time to eat or to sleep, or to earn a hundred dollars, and a very little time to entertain a hope and an insight which becomes the light of our life.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“You can’t have operations without screams. Pain and the knife—they’re inseparable.”
—Jean Scott Rogers. Robert Day. Mr. Blount (Frank Pettingell)
“You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under, if you are really going to get your reform realized.”
—Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928)
“He had a whole heaven and horizon to himself, and the sun seemed to be journeying over his clearing only the livelong day.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)