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Munich Airport Winter Upkeep Staff Gears Up for Protected Operations
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Munich Airport operates a complete winter upkeep service to make sure secure and steady operations from early November to mid-April, even throughout probably the most difficult winter climate. To fight ice and snow, a strong fleet of 184 automobiles stands prepared, with 152 devoted to clearing and de-icing the airfield and 32 sustaining roads, pathways, and public parking areas. Impressively, 71 of those automobiles are tractors sourced from the native agricultural group. All the winter service crew includes round 600 personnel, together with 520 employees from close by agriculture and haulage companies, with over 200 emergency responders deployed for every shift to maintain the airport’s areas away from snow and ice.
To take care of easy and secure airport operations, massive areas have to be cleared rapidly when snowfall hits. The airport’s two runways, aprons, and taxiways cowl roughly 5.6 million sq. meters—equal to greater than 780 soccer fields. Regardless of this huge expanse, the devoted winter upkeep crew can clear a runway over 4,000 meters lengthy and 60 meters extensive in roughly half-hour.
A variety of specialised gear helps these efforts, together with 22 snow sweepers, 5 rotary snowplows, and a snowcat. The airport has additionally invested in new automobiles and upgraded present ones with bigger plows for enhanced clearing capabilities. To bolster their fleet, tractors supplied by native farmers are fitted with snowplows and built-in into the operation.
Munich Airport’s Operations division coordinates the winter service, intently monitoring circumstances with the assistance of superior climate forecasts from Germany’s Nationwide Meteorological Service (DWD) and an early black ice warning system. This technique, supported by knowledge from 18 measuring stations on-site, helps guarantee well timed response to altering climate. Particular automobiles are additionally deployed frequently to evaluate the braking circumstances on the runways.
Cleared snow is transported to one in every of six designated snow depots, able to storing as much as 2.2 million cubic meters of snow per season. An underground assortment reservoir captures the meltwater, guaranteeing it doesn’t affect the setting. For environmental safety, mechanical cleansing is prioritized over chemical de-icing. When vital, de-icing brokers are utilized cautiously, with runoff collected by runway gutters and directed to a meltwater retention basin earlier than being conveyed to the therapy plant in Eitting. Silica sand can be used on some surfaces as an eco-friendly various.
Past sustaining the airfield, plane de-icing is vital for secure flight operations. This process is carried out by specialised “polar bear” automobiles managed by the Firm for De-Icing and Plane Towing at Munich Airport Ltd. (EFM), a three way partnership between Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Munich Airport. The “polar bears” de-ice as much as 15,000 plane yearly, from small Learjets to the Airbus A380, with the vast majority of the de-icing fluid collected and recycled.
Regardless of the in depth preparation, extreme ice and snow can nonetheless pose challenges for the airport and its companions. The mixed efforts of de-icing plane, clearing runways, and all associated winter measures might result in occasional delays in scheduled dealing with. Nonetheless, the airport’s final objective stays steadfast: guaranteeing the security and reliability of flight operations in even the harshest winter circumstances.
