British Airways has bought state-of-the art de-icing cannons and is training baggage handlers how to operate them in order to stop its passengers getting stranded at Heathrow in heavy snow.
Following chaos caused by the “Beast from the East” blizzards in February, BA is training the staff to crew its 25 water-cannon-style de-icing trucks.
As part of preparations for freezing weather this winter it has bought two new trucks, each costing £900,000.
BA deals with more than 200 Heathrow departures daily, but cancelled more than 300 flights after heavy snowfall last year.
The Standard was shown BA’s foul weather preparation at the airline’s perimeter training facility.
New volunteers, who will be paid overtime, are trained on a simulator and then a static training wing. The simulator helps develop hand-eye co-ordination and checks they can work under pressure.
Each Danish-built truck features a cab that unfurls and lifts the operator high into the air. A sprayer arm gives them enough reach to blast the widest wings with a glycol fluid mix heated to 65 degrees.
Each truck holds 8,000 litres. It takes 1,000 litres to clear an A380 and 740 litres for a 747 jumbo jet.
Up to six trucks will work at once on an A380, which can be de-iced in 20 minutes, while smaller planes can be cleared in just three minutes. Planes cannot fly while iced up as it disrupts airflow over the wing.
Mick Field, BA’s training quality and compliance manager for winter operations, said: “We have a core team of 63 staff and throughout the summer they wash aircraft; during the winter they de-ice. But when things get really bad, we call on our winter operations support team from loading and baggage. They’re our secret weapon so they are trained every 28 days.”
