[NTarrant]

Sorry Expat but why is it unacceptable thinking to spend millions of pounds on equipment that may be used to its full extent a few times every ten years? As Binman says its sound business sense. You have to think what you could use that money for instead and get value for it 365 days of the year not once in a blue moon.

Even farmers don’t buy expensive combine harvesters anymore, the hirer them in, why would they invest thousands of pounds on a bit of kit that sits rotting in a barn for 49 weeks of the year? Same applies

[SimonRowberry]

Nigel is absolutely right – the same point that I made on the Weather thread elsewhere. However, it does give some parties something to hide behind if they so wish.

Simon

[Expat_Consultant]

NT

On the same basis, should the Thames flood barrier be dismantled?

Snow disruption in the UK is a ‘known-unknown’ risk, in other words it can happen any year, but the exact amounts are not easy to predict.

I would hypothesise that a well run business, promoting itself as a reliable point of connection for business travellers, should have a feasible contingency plan for a known-unknown risk.

At the moment, one is left with the impression that the risk is accepted and left to a workaround on the day, which is not an acceptable attitude as far as I am concerned.

This is the second consecutive year that the London airports have suffered major disruption due to snow/ice and the total cost of these disruptions is no doubt many more times than the cost of the contingency.

If Helsinki Vantaa, an airport with a much smaller business than LHR, can ‘afford’ snow and ice equipment, then so can London. Of course HEL will use the equipment more than Heathrow, but the underlying principle is that a major airport needs to recover from disruption as quickly as possible.

Sadly, it seems more of a lack of will than sensible business thinking.

[AsiaPacific]

Thankyou Expat… could not have said it better myself. Running a business requires investment …. its a cost of running the business and the costs to customers of all these delays and damage to your goodwill would surely justify it …. sadly I think the decision will be in the negative..

[NTarrant]

I am sorry Expat but I fear you may have lost touch with the UK since you have been in Malta (if that is wrong I apologise as that was the implication in another thread) and need to take a bite from the reality sandwich.

You just can not compare the Thames Barrier to snow equipment at LHR, the barrier was built because the threat is there at any time of year. Furthermore the effect of not having that barrier is, loss of life, considerable damage to property and business, far in excess of any delays at LHR through not having enough snow clearing equipment.

You draw a comparison with HEL, sorry but Finland gets tons of the stuff so that is just a silly comparison. You say in the other thread that GLA, EDI and ABZ get the same amount at London, what rubbish. I would expect those places to have sufficent snow clearing equipment relevent to the size of the operation for the very fact they get much more of the stuff that the south of England.

The major problems that cause delays at LHR and LGW is fog and seeing as there has not been a way invented to disperse that yet we are stuck with it. In an ideal world where money is no object then snow clearing equipent to the scale would be available. I would agree with the comment that the weather can be used as an excuse for not doing something but then that applies to all industries not just travel.

So what would you prefer? Investment into security equipment and staff that speeds up your journey or snow equipment? I bet if you were asked this question in August I know what your answer would be and I think I know what other people would say.

Happy travels

[Wildgoose]

Why not ask the Government for funds to tackle both issues? The smooth running of an airport, in all weather conditons, and the security on site are equally as important.

[Expat_Consultant]

NT

Please do not be so quick to rubbish my comparison, it makes you look like a little Englander.

For your information, the Thames flood barrier was used in anger on 95 occasions between 1982 and January 2007. Being a preventive tool, it is not easy to discern how many times floods would have occured had the barrier not been there, but’s let’s say 100% for the sake of argument.

46% of these operations occured in 2 separate years and 21% within a single month.

My data is from Hansard.

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.com/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070118/text/70118w0004.htm

Sure the damage would be larger and there would be loss of life, but the scae of the geographic area and the number of people involved is far larger than Heathrow.

Do you realise that the cost of the barrier was £440M – and that at 1982 values – over a billion these days, I would imagine and that is without considering the operational costs.

It looks like the flood barrier has cost about £4.6m per use, project costs only. Proably over £5m with operational costs added, but I have no data for that.

I woud agree that it is a valid investment considering the stakes.

Given the strategic importance of Heathrow and the immense cost of disruption, I still don’t get how you think that the provision of some extra snow and ice clearing equipment is not justified.

[Binman62]

Expat….”Do you realise that the cost of the barrier was £440M – and that at 1982 values – over a billion these daysI”

You could not have made a stronger case for not investing in snow clearing equipment……

The fact is that at a £billion, even £10 billion, the Thames barrier provides protection from an event that would costs hundreds if not thousands of billions of pounds and is therefore a wise investment.

Heathrow may get snow once or twice a year and an event like we are having now is a once in 30 years. The costs to airlines may be £10 or £20 millions but the costs of investing in single deicing rig are £250,000 plus training and ongoing maintenance. Airlines and handling agents do invest in this equipment to cope with frosts and have strategies to deal with this. (BA ant ice overnight for example). But no matter how much they invested, the infrastructure of LHR; runways, ATC restrictions, lack of jetty served gates, etc would still cause problems.

For example de-icing in snow, freezing rain and in certain other weather can only be done with in 30mins of take off…Note take off….How many times have you taxied around LHR for longer than that?

A central de icing point in such conditions is essential and would improve over all operational performance for all airlines but the BAA have clearly decided that the reputation damage to LHR at times like this is not sufficient for them to provide such a facility.

Since T5 opened over 90% of all traffic movements take place between two runways. This causes congestion at the best of times and is why BA domestic flights departing from gate 1-9 in T5 and taking off from 09R (southerly runway) have to go towards T3 before turning back towards T5 adding 10-15 minutes to the taxi time. Common sense would suggest they use 09L (northerly runway) but the “cranford agreement” dating from the 1950’s prevents take off from this runway except in the most exceptional circumstances.

Heathrow is planned to operate at near full capacity at every hour of every day between 5am and 11.30pm. Anything that interrupts the normal flow of aircraft, be it snow, rain, sleet, wind, fog, security, systems failures or even congestion on the M4 and 25 will result in disruption and this disruption will impact BA bmi more than others due to it being their home base and due to the size and complexity of their operations.

Unless you can build an airport with multiple runways, genuine 24 hour operations, with significant spare jetty served gate capacity and a landlord who wants to run an airport and not a shopping mall, then you really do need to accept the limitations of Heathrow and hope that the days you want to travel are not affected by snow rain fog sleet high winds or a blocked runways.

[Expat_Consultant]

you really do need to accept the limitations of Heathrow and hope that the days you want to travel are not affected by snow rain fog sleet high winds or a blocked runways.

My clients do not think that ‘hoping’ is a reasonable strategy for turning up to run their events.

QED use other airports, usually ZRH, FRA, MUC, AMS who have made the right investments.

Still, what does one expect in the UK? Plenty of excuses, litle action.

[AsiaPacific]

Todays flight to SOF – Czech Airlines… delay – 15 mins… BA – delay 118mins.
Was there any snow today ? I guess it must be another reason … there always seems to be reasons…
Maybe if airlines started to count the cost of delays to their customers businesses — and be be forced to share them… things might be different. But then again pigs may fly too !!!!!!!!!!

[NTarrant]

Expat I think that we will have to agree to disagree. You still pick examples where they get loads of snow ZRH, MUC, FRA and even AMS gets more than London, to justify the investment you are seeking. Now you say “some extra” what is some extra, a snow plough?

Business gets disrupted by the weather, I was unable to get to my office for three days due to the weather and a colleague has been trying to get to a meeting in Oxford since just before Christmas and the three times it has been cancelled due to snow, fourth time lucky perhaps. Maybe I have made a mistake mentioning that as I am sure someone will start going on about road gritting and salt availability!!

[davidbell]

Expat_Consultant , it all depends on what you mean by the “right” investment. If the cost of this equipment is more than the costs of the delays etc, then it’s not a good investment.

As an alternative, how many people in the UK own chains for their cars? If they did, it would mean they can drive down all those ungritted roads, but how many people think this is a worthwhile investment? Not many, I think the answer is.

[AsiaPacific]

David, I feel it is important to define the total cost of delays … as I am pretty sure BA only looks at its immediate costs and NOT the longer term cost to its goodwill, future earnings, direct costs to pax, etc. There certainly seems to be quite a few disgruntled pax as contributors to this forum ( from my reading ). Also pretty sure that when these total costs are accurately estimated ( very hard to be precise) then the total sum cost of the extra equipment is easily justified. I think this is what expat is getting at. Its just that no-one ever appears to sum the total costs involved … only the here and now costs….

[Expat_Consultant]

I think this is what expat is getting at.

Exactly.

[AsiaPacific]

Just reading the other Thread – Poor Weather or Poor Operations —- I think the two threads should be combined…. a sseem to be almost the same… however no mention of the dreaded ‘communist threat ‘ on this thread yet…

[Author]

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