A stranger to Britain watching the way the media responds to extreme weather conditions might conclude quite reasonably that two types of snow fall on the country. There is the white stuff that comes every year, causes varying degrees of disruption, joy and misery, and then melts. And there is the sort of special, toxic snow that falls exclusively on London and the south-east. Only the latter counts as a national crisis, fills front pages, poleaxes Heathrow and merits ministerial emergency statements. From the tone of the response, you would not guess that life in most of the country has continued relatively normally in the last few days and that it has hardly snowed at all in some places, though the cold has been extreme. Things may get worse, as bad weather spreads. But so far Britain has not fallen to pieces in every regard because of the snow.
Some travellers are suffering quite extraordinary delays and ineptitude. Many people will have a horrible Christmas because of the chaos. But importantly, the nation's power and gas supplies have held up – so far – as they do not always here and abroad in severe weather. Most main roads were running reasonably well yesterday. So were many train lines, though the Eurostar rail service out of London was in a state of semi-collapse, blamed on the line in France, not the British section which remained open. The queues at St Pancras were the worst of advertisements for the expansion of high-speed rail, confirmed with unfortunate timing by the transport secretary.
But air travellers have suffered the most. BAA, the operator of Heathrow airport, is particularly culpable. It pleads that staff have been working heroically to dig planes out of frozen parking stands and make runways safe. But it is a disgrace that the busiest international airport in the world should have been shut to most traffic for the best part of three days, after a snowfall that was predicted in advance and which airports elsewhere in Europe could have coped with effectively.
The blizzard that hit the airport on Saturday was extreme: any airport would have shut for a time, as many others in Europe did. Heathrow, cramped and overstretched, is harder to manage than most. But it is clear that BAA, a very prosperous private company, has skimped on the resources needed to cope with an emergency like this and that travellers are paying the price. "It appears to have made totally inadequate preparations for winter snow and ice, and it is making Britain look like a third-world country," said the former transport secretary Andrew Adonis yesterday. He is right. One of the airport's two runways remains closed today, three days after the snow fell, while planes are still frozen at their stands. Even now BAA cannot predict when Europe's leading airport will be operating normally. Many more days like this, and it will not be a leading airport at all.
Airlines, especially British Airways, have played an ignoble role too: the BA website collapsed intermittently yesterday afternoon, while phones were unanswered. Passengers have been left to fend for themselves. The fact that all this happened just before Christmas makes the consequences worse, though it also challenges the modern assumption that hyper-mobility is a right: not everyone will feel sorry for families denied skiing trips or Christmas sun in the tropics. And no amount of government media-management and planning can control the weather. At times, we have to accept conditions as they are, and our limited ability to defy them.
This is not to excuse the implosion of Heathrow, or Britain's long-term underinvestment in transport infrastructure. Despite the snow, yesterday's confirmation of a new high-speed line was welcome. Modern economies require people to be able to get about; one day's disruption should not become six or seven. But at least some people will get a white Christmas.
Comments in chronological order (Total 67 comments)
21 December 2010 12:06AM
I thought everything got better when it was privatised.
So this is just another private sector cock-up .... wouldn't want to stop those CEO's pocketing hoards of cash, and the shareholders miss out on a bumper Christmas just to do the job the industry is there to do.
21 December 2010 12:07AM
Any monopoly, (state or private) will always lead to bad service, high prices and poor investment. Each London airport needs to be owned and run by a different operator.
Even the USA does not allow its main airports to be run without state control.
21 December 2010 12:08AM
Why BAA is banning pictures ?
21 December 2010 12:10AM
As someone noted, CallMeDave seems to have disappeared.
21 December 2010 12:10AM
Think BA was better before privatisation?
Think BT was better before privatisation?
Think British Gas was better before privatisation?
Ideological pig headedness is not helpful, it has nothing to do with privatisation, it is how it was privatised that was the problem. Giving BAA such a monopoly and then allowing it to be bought by a massive foreign corporation were the problem.
21 December 2010 12:10AM
Bottom line Airports are points of transit, there prime function is the movement of people and they have very little in way of infrastructure or planning for the keeping people in airports role.
Remember the silly three hours before you flight check-in is relatively new, turn and fly was the central idea, not turn up and wait for bloody hours. The only change is a increases in shops for people to spend money in, but when it comes to such issue as seating there been no changes in approach since the turn and fly days.
21 December 2010 12:11AM
>>>Despite the snow, yesterday's confirmation of a new high-speed line was welcome.
First put a decent snow clearing systems in train tracks and Airports ....
21 December 2010 12:14AM
The Sun today said Heathrow was like the 3rd world. When Pope's pal said this earlier this year The Sun was outraged.
from twitter land
21 December 2010 12:14AM
The question should be put to ADI and the Ferrovial Group as to why the huge profits generated after privatisation haven't been invested in ice clearing equipment, and the art of basic communication. It must be some comfort for the hundreds of stranded passengers to hear that well worn phrase, 'lessons must be learnt'. As this is the latest incident in the never ending farce of British air travel when faced with snow or a new terminal.
21 December 2010 12:18AM
If they're no better, AND the cash goes to corporations and private individuals instead of to HM Treasury .... what was the point?
Was British Gas better before privatisation? Would that be the British gas that actually put in the infrastructure for NS gas during the sixties and seventies by any chance? What do you reckon the chances of the private sector doing that without Joe Taxpayer paying for it?
Ditto Electricity, ditto phones, ditto sewerage, ditto water, in fact ditto every fucking thing that needs infrastructure.
As you say, ideological pig-headedness doesn't help. It especially doesn't help get wires and pipes in the ground, and more wires in the fg air.
21 December 2010 12:48AM
@The Editorial team - Any chance of letting us know the author of yesterday's attack on the Unions. For such a damaging and highly suspect editorial to be understood fully it might make sense if are in fact told who wrote it? Was it Julian Glover as many writers suspect or not? I think we should be told - at least show us loyal Guardian readers of many years some respect it's bad enough reading such articles but for it to stand as the editorial for the paper is a very strong statement to make and has caused much indignation throughout the Guardian community of readers.
21 December 2010 1:04AM
According to BAA's press release dated Nov they did not skimp at all. Original loink to press release:http://www.heathrowairport.com/portal/page/Heathrow^General^Our business and community^Media centre^Press releases^Results/7d31c2264879c210VgnVCM20000039821c0a____/a22889d8759a0010VgnVCM200000357e120a____/
Suddenly disappeared from the site - here it is in full:
"Heathrow's army of snow ploughs stretch their wings as snow bites
29 November 2010
The cold snap may have only just bitten but Heathrow's snow team has been working for months to ensure the UK's hub airport will once again be prepared for the onset of winter.
With an extra half a million pounds invested in equipment this year, Heathrow’s airside department run constant checks of runway and taxiway areas, applying de-icing and of course clearing any snow and debris away.
Heathrow's specialist teams - which includes 50 highly trained staff and more than 60 hi-tech vehicles - have been preparing since the end of last winter to do everything they can to minimise delays in the face of wintry conditions.
The airport employs a fleet of snow ploughs and de-icing vehicles to clear and prepare runways and taxiways at the airport's specialist snow base which sits in between the two runways. Heathrow's airside operations teams have spent the summer refreshing their training with plans being discussed with airlines, baggage handlers and air traffic control to ensure a coordinated response.
While London may have run out of grit last winter, Heathrow is determined that it doesn't run out of the highly concentrated de-icing fluid it uses on the runways (grit is not used as this could get into engines). That's why the airport now has an innovative computer system that remotely measures how much de-icer is left - to ensure restocking can take place when required. To minimise the impact on the surrounding greenery, the chemical bi-product - glycol - is also recovered by a host of new recovery vehicles, ensuring more waste de- icing liquid can be removed effectively from the airport.
To ensure it has the most up-to-date weather predictions, Heathrow uses the Met Office’s OpenRunway system which offers 24 hour access to measurements including air and runway temperatures, wind and visibility, all vital in determining the right time to apply anti or de-icer.
Key Heathrow snow facts:
Heathrow was the only major airport in the UK to not close last winter There are over 60 vehicles and 50 staff keeping the runways clear An extra £500,000 has been invested this year in snow-fighting technology Heathrow has storage for 500,000 litres of de-icing fluid Each de-icing vehicle can hold a massive 60,000 litres and it takes around 25 mins to de-ice each runway
Liquid de-icer used on the runway and taxiways is effective for longer and ensures that grit doesn't cause damage to engines.
Colin Wood, Director of Airside, said: "As the world’s busiest international airport it's absolutely vital we are well prepared and our team do an excellent job often in quite severe conditions. While we stayed open last winter, we won’t rest on our laurels and promise that we'll be ready, waiting and doing everything we can to make every journey better for our passengers.""
21 December 2010 1:14AM
@TheGreatRonRafferty
Was British Gas better before privatisation? Would that be the British gas that actually put in the infrastructure for NS gas during the sixties and seventies by any chance? What do you reckon the chances of the private sector doing that without Joe Taxpayer paying for it?
Ditto Electricity, ditto phones, ditto sewerage, ditto water, in fact ditto every fucking thing that needs infrastructure.
Extremely well said and let's not forget the utterances along those lines made by an electricity companies representative who said in an interview that the only way they can go ahead with investing in 'low carbon' energy supplies, which as it turns out now conveniently includes 'nuclear energy' is if they can make a profit out of it. Not to be reinvested or given back to the public in the form of lower bills etc but simply to go into the ever deepening pockets of their shareholders. And what did Chris Hulne say in reply to this? - For that reason we will have to face price increases which will be reflected in our bills. Unbelievable. Not only rise upon rise over the last two years where utility bills have nearly doubled but further rises. Fuel poverty more like fuel deaths over the next few years - watch this space. Same thing we now hear with the rail service - improved facilities to be paid for by huge fare increases by us with profits going straight into the fat wallets of those good old shareholders. And this is why privatisation has been so good for us? It's a joke but the only one's laughing are - yes you guessed it - the shareholders and all the overseas companies who now own our many assets and don't give a fig about how we are affected by it all.
Shameful. Bad enough with normal goods and services but with essentials like water, heating and energy? They are holding a gun to our heads and the government are doing nothing about it. All thanks to Thatcher assisted by those in New Labour who should have reversed such actions but never did - something I shall always hold them to account for and a stain on the party's history.
21 December 2010 1:20AM
It all comes down to dollars and cents, and the public be damned. Was that not the case with the mortgage debacle? The governments are their to regulate these problems, but as usual they let the foxes run the hen houses.
21 December 2010 1:22AM
how dare you; Call Me Dave has not disappeared.
He is showing us how it should be done. He is personally clearing the runways of snow with a shovel. Now it is just up to the peasants to join the big society.
21 December 2010 4:02AM
Even worse. You don't find airports in Africa and Central America closed by a few centimetres of snow.
21 December 2010 4:04AM
imagine the alternative
"Nation's misallocated resources - millions wasted keeping travelers flying as people nearly starve"
see
Snow lessons for supermarkets
The big freeze has highlighted the need for change in our greedy, unsustainable food retail system
21 December 2010 4:56AM
The difference was that the public sector simply did not run any of the organisations well, it simply did not make a profit and cost the Treasury money every year. People would wait months to get a phoneline installed, if you think the trains are bad now BR was even worse. I am fed up to the back teeth with the seemingly knee jerk reaction of many that always cries that privatisation and private companies are the route of all evils. Personally I wish the UK would start to look around the world and see which nations run things better and simply copy them. Historically we may have been the first to have many of the services we use but we are certainly not the best at providing them anymore.
Can name me one large UK Public Owned body that is run well, efficiently and is profitable?
21 December 2010 6:33AM
It's about more than a few inches of snow and the UK's comical lack of organizational skills. It's about cultural incompetence.
UK companies, organisations and public "services" are heavily populated with the semi-literate and semi-numerate who can barely string a coherent sentence together, who exist in a fog of ill-informed apathy and have no motivation or ability to do anything to a professional level.
This army of third-raters has turned the UK into a society striving for mediocrity. We struggle through every day bombarded with warnings about risk and danger and threat. We are obsessed with the difficult and the impossible instead of achievement and success.
There is no political awareness of the UK's decline into incompetence. Until that changes we can continue to expect a few inches of snow or any other entirely predictable event to throw us into utter chaos.
21 December 2010 8:17AM
@GermanicusReex
"Can name me one large UK Public Owned body that is run well, efficiently and is profitable?"
You see that is where the problem lies with people's perceptions of public services. They should pay for themselves I agree and therefore not be so much of a drain of public finance. However they are not supposed to make a profit as such they are there to provide the public with a service for the good of the public not for the good of some far off shareholder or international conglomerate who's interest in serving the public in the same way a government would by taking care of the more vulnerable and ensuring fairness and social justice is maintained is the last thing on their minds.
As I said before water and heating are essentials that shouldn't be left to the vagaries of the market place and like transport too should have more state involvement if not full renationalistation.
21 December 2010 8:17AM
Perhaps they listened to the Met Office, who are advised by the CRU, whose experts recently said that snow will be a very rare event.
21 December 2010 8:32AM
Yes. They all were. Since when did private companies take on nationalised industries that were losing money?
Indeed, one cause of nationalisation in some industries (e.g. steel, BMC, etc) was that they were losing cash hand over fist in the private sector AND having no investment in the infrastructure of the industry.
Don't you know your industrial history? Weren't you round when the utilities were sold off?
Don't you read about the amounts of cash the public paid into BR, and the vast increase that the taxpayer now stuffs in so that the "private" rail companies can make a vast profit ....... except of course when they can't (East Coast Main Line ring any bells?)
Jesus wept!
21 December 2010 8:33AM
Poor old Gideon getting it in the neck again I see.
21 December 2010 9:01AM
Think British Gas was better before privatisation?
British Gas (Centrica) makes massive profits out of the pockets of Joe Public. So massive that someone might think that Joe Public were beiong overcharged.
The privatised energy companies are now holding Britain to ransom. The Gas companies have not built a new gas terminus thought to be in the national interest because it would allow the storage of more gas. That's because commercial interests are put above national stategic interests.
In addition look at the electricity generators fawning all over the government to build more power plants. They want the consumer to invest in the construction of all the new stuff through higher energy prices and guaranteed prices. In the free market investors are supposed to provide the money and take the risk, not the customers. So we are going to be investing in all the now forms of power generation and the privatised compaies are going to walk off with all the profits. That does not sound like an equitable shared enterprise to me. It is doo-lally.
If the market cannot provide the power through the market, then shut it down and nationalise it again. I'm fed up with being overcharged by greedy marketeers and being told everything is so much better now, because it is privatised. Yeah, right.
21 December 2010 9:08AM
@GermanicusRex
"Can name me one large UK Public Owned body that is run well, efficiently and is profitable?"
well a public body by definiton is not primarily run for profit, but to answer your question more pertinently, there are a huge number of such bodies in continental Europe.
Starting with Stockholm Arlanda Airport.....
21 December 2010 9:24AM
Having just arrived back in the country via Manchester Airport I had to drive across the Pennines to Leeds on the M62 after midnight. It was -9 degrees but 40 miles of three lane motorway in both directions had been cleared and gritted and were absolutely fine...so why is it that they can't clear a few miles of runway and taxi areas at Heathrow Airport? Absolutely pathetic.
I'm all for introducing heavy compensation for passengers left in the dreadful position that those at Heathrow have been if the Airport Authorities and Airlines can't show that all reasonable steps were taken. That should focus their minds on proper resourcing to deal with these situations.
21 December 2010 9:25AM
@GermanicusRex
Public Satisfaction with the NHS is the highest its been for 20 years (source King'sFund survey). Of course profitability is not one of its aims.
The vast majority of our universities are well run and producing *good* graduates with much lower drop out rates than our competitor nations.
Expect both of these to nose-dive as they are privatised by the Tories (calling it a ConDem coalition now seems redundant).
21 December 2010 9:29AM
Where is the Big Society in all this? Shouldn't armies of unemployed Northerners be bused down to Heathrow to shovel the snow off the runways?
(sarcasm)
21 December 2010 9:41AM
It's not just that they couldn't get the runways clear, and the planes flying. On Saturday evening at Heathrow, with thousands of people stranded, and hotel rooms full, they turned off the heating in the airport and went home.
The shops and cafes all closed, there were not enough blankets, and people literally went without food and drink. Old people, people in wheelchairs, young children, mothers with babies.... not a thought given to their welfare.
I was due to fly out on Sunday - how grateful I am that I didn't have to go through that.
Outrageous.
21 December 2010 9:54AM
@ german.....
.it has nothing to do with privatisation, it is how it was privatised that was the problem. Giving BAA such a monopoly and then allowing it to be bought by a massive foreign corporation were the problem
The point about privatisation is that it runs for private profit. This often involves asset stripping and selling on. One sure-fire way to make a fast buck is to reduce the payroll drastically, then sell the enterprise before the product is seen to have deteriorated as a result.
name me one large UK Public Owned body that is run well, efficiently and is profitable?
Well actually BAA before it was privatised. It was starved of investment under the stupidity of monetarist economics, but it ran the best airports in the world for decades, including creating the worlds busiest. I dont need to repeat the responses about profit for public enterprise, but success in the rest of the free enterprise world is defined by growth and being the biggest. And the public sector created Hrathrow as the biggest in the world.
21 December 2010 10:05AM
How did those bankers earn their bonuses again?
21 December 2010 10:12AM
For the record and for the benefit of readers far away from the South East of England, as a Londoner I'd like to point out that the snow fell over several hours on either side of midday Saturday 18th December. It is now Tuesday 21st December and Heathrow is still only partially open.
It is not as though there has been continual extra snow falls; they have had nearly three days and are still unable to provide a full service. Clearly the facilities and planning are not up to the task facing them. That task is to clear the six to eight inches of snow that fell and later froze. Perhaps BAA should look to the managers of Helsinki or Anchorage airports for a few pointers.
Heathrow makes large amounts of money as a transit hub; passengers fly in to catch other flights rather than just getting access to our part of the country. That business can go elsewhere and I suspect many operators may be thinking just that.
21 December 2010 10:25AM
Minister of Transport Philip Hammond said on Radio 4 this morning that the government couldn't do anything for Heathrow because they didn't own it.
Neither he nor the interviewer made the obvious connection...
21 December 2010 10:30AM
It's time Ferrovial sold the airport! I think a 2 year old child could do a better job!
21 December 2010 10:32AM
We were on UL506 on Saturday while it sat on the ground for 9 hours waiting for a definitive decision from BAA. Then kicked off the plane and left to fend for ourselves, with terminal announcements saying "please make arrangements to leave Heathrow airport" as they did not want us to be their problem. Called back by text message at 2am Sunday, only to arrive at 6:30 in order to hear it was closed for the day. Called back on Monday and finally departed at 11:00am. Not that they could do much about the weather, but information delivery was poor throughout, from both the airline and the airport authority. Moreover, the return trip to the airport on Sunday morning was further hobbled by the early underground trains having no traction current. Part of the "let's do better" message needs to be realizing that the tube is a primary emergency service for getting passengers in and out and more crucially, getting airport workers in to secure the place and get it working in time.
Transit passengers were given zero shrift, as they were not clothed for a London blizzard, and had nowhere to go to beyond the hotels whose prices had mysteriously jacked up.
I wasn't planning to spend any winter holiday in England. Next time I won't plan to fly though it at all.
21 December 2010 10:37AM
Don't use Heathrow; use Gatwick or another airport... they will soon either sell the airport of improve the services once they start losing money.
21 December 2010 10:58AM
Look, the main problem for Heathrow is that it is too small. It has no spare capacity to cope when emergencies arise. But I'm afraid most of the media, lots of NIMBYs and deluded climate change protestors and craven politicians have to take responsibility for this, because they have prevented the airport from expanding to deal with this sort of thing.
There's a reason why Heathrow couldn't cope when Schiphol and Frankfurt could (just). They have more space. The Guardian should be honest about this in its editorial - if you campaign to restrict Heathrow, you can't complain when its performance suffers because of over-capacity.
21 December 2010 11:00AM
This is pathetic. Whether it is the world's busiest international airport or the 4th busiest in passenger volume, Heathrow should be able handle a weather event that is really not that harsh or extreme.
Every time a flake of snow falls in the South East, there is complete national meltdown. And the chorus of claims about 'not having the equipment', and 'it only happens every few years' justify and unjustifiable response to winter weather.
To be clear about the columns point that all airports close because of snow, I would like to offer a correction. Montreal Airport has not closed due to snow for 50 years. Yes, they are prepared, and have better equipment, but a 18 inch dump and -20 doesn't cause the airport shut down. And most storms on the scale of what occur in the UK would not even warrant using this 'equipment' that the people in UK say they don't have.
I accept that winter weather will cause delays, and perhaps longer ones in London than in Moscow or Edmonton, but really BAA - sort this out now. If you want to claim (some what misleadingly) that you are the world's busiest international airport, then invest £20m in proper equipment, training and resources to operate a standard that is not a national and international embarrassment.
21 December 2010 11:04AM
CallmeDave must have been prescient, cancelling his Christmas holiday in Thailand ahead of the snow. If you look closely at the BBC footage, the man in that desginer all weatherproof jacket, posing with a shovel in his hand next to a plane stuck on the runway is actually Daveboy!
Before it was privatised BAA did create and run Heathrow as a world class airport. Ferrovial has almost run it to the ground after buying BAA. They are still bleeding money servicing debt incurred to finance the acquisition and they can only recoup some of it by selling off Gatwick. Ferrovial's UK subsidiary Amey is also a major contractor for many local councils - they run car parks, toll booths, maintain infrastructure etc and make a lot of money off local and federal authorities
21 December 2010 11:18AM
Reassuring somehow when mother nature kicks in and reminds us who is really in charge. We grow complacent, push of a button, click here technology and when something that we used to dream about, apparently, as in I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas' occurs it is verging on the apocalyptic.
Of course its not natural is it, snow in December I mean, climate change don't y' know. I think we know too much and understand too little.
Oh for the lost innocence of my youth; before cheap air travel, before unrealistic expectation. A time when people knew how to handle disappointment.
'Have yourself a Merry little Christmas' the harder we attempt to evoke the spirit the more it evades us.
21 December 2010 11:50AM
I thought we had this sorted out some time ago.
Large snowfalls are a fairly rare event in the South East of England, growing up in the 70s and 80s there was often several years between any real accumulations of snow. To provide a capability of clearing snow and associated bad weather effects you have to invest serious amounts of money, it wasn't worth it when the companies were publicly owned and it wasn't worth it when they are privately owned
To compare Heathrow to Anchorage or Montreal is lunacy of the highest order.
Anyways up to invest now given that snow will be something rarely seen in the UK due to global warming.... ah... mmmmm ....
21 December 2010 12:08PM
Irrespective of one's views on the "hypermobility" of modern life, anyone who can't empathise with the misery and frustration of families whose happy excitement about going on holiday has just turned to worms is a very mean-minded and unpleasant individual.
21 December 2010 12:37PM
@The DudeAbides
The space argument may have some bearing on the aircraft hard stands but it has none on the runways. The second runway is still shut three days after the snow fell. That runway is empty, unused at the moment. Why can't they clear it and open it?. They are going to have to do it eventually or are they just waiting for a thaw to save money.
21 December 2010 12:47PM
Someone on the radio, from an airport in Alaska, said Heathrow had no chance to keep up in sudden bad weather with only 2 runways. It needs 3 so one can always be made good while the others are in use. Or something like that.
21 December 2010 12:49PM
Well I am the modern equivalent of Norman Tebbit's dad - and now I want to come home for Christmas !!
Fortunately, not via Heathrow ...
21 December 2010 12:56PM
One frequent complaint was about the lack of information to passengers at Heathrow.
If you look at Denmark's Copenhagen airport website cph.dk they offer a free text message information service for flight arrivals, departures, delays etc.
Now what are the chances of that being provided by Heathrow and other UK airports !? How about it, Dave ?
21 December 2010 1:43PM
Wrong metaphor ?
21 December 2010 1:45PM
the Ordnance Survey ?
(well, apart from Free Our Data ...)
21 December 2010 2:09PM
@Eastfinchleyite
You may have a point about the runway but if you can't manoeuvre the planes to the stands then having the runway open is irrelevant.
In any case, it is clear that Heathrow's physical footprint is much less than other comparable airports, and that has been an important factor in the recent problems.
21 December 2010 3:59PM
It might be worth remembering that BAA is owned by a Spanish company, intent on profit