Assessing airport snow and ice removal and its economic implications for sustainable airport management

Abstract

For airports that regularly encounter storms with snow and ice in an average year, removal of this snow and ice is essential for maintaining safe operations. The purpose of this paper is to assist airports in determining whether they are appropriately managing their snow and ice removal resources and applying engineering best practices. Two airports in Europe and two airports in the USA that have approximately the same amount of annual snowfall and handle the same mix and volume array of aircraft have been identified for analysis of their snow and ice removal practices. Analysis was done for numerous parameters: cost per passenger, cost per metric tonne of cargo and cost per hour for which the pieces of equipment were in use. The analysis identifies which airports allocated their resources most efficiently and provides a basis for recommendations to the airports. The research contributes to academia by providing methodology and analysis of ways in which snow and ice storms influence airports, as well as contributing factors.