On Friday, the winter service at Vienna-Schwechat airport was awakened from the “summer sleep”. Due to the snowfall, there was particularly high demand for clearing vehicles and de-icing. This also led to delays in air traffic.

For safety reasons, aircraft must be de-iced before departure if snow and ice form. Failure to do this can, under certain circumstances, become dangerous. In the past there have been at least two fatal crashes - one in Canada and one in the USA - which could largely be traced back to failure or inadequate deicing. In the case of machines that have the engines mounted at the stern, thorough deicing of the wings is particularly important in winter, as lumps of ice could get into the jet engines and damage them.

So it is not surprising that a particularly large number of flight captains requested de-icing on Friday before take-off. As a result, waiting times of an hour or more were not uncommon, but rather the norm. The reasons for this are seen differently by pilots and the airport. For example, one captain claimed that Vienna Airport had far too few staff for the devices.

Flughafen Wien AG sees it completely differently: “On Friday, the entire de-icing team, all vehicles and all de-icing positions were in action. Due to the weather conditions, however, it was actually an exceptional situation - yesterday, with 173 aircraft de-icing, we carried out more de-icing per day than in the past five years. The reason for this was the heavy and wet snow due to the relatively mild temperatures combined with snowfall that lasted all day, which meant that the individual de-icing process took a little more time. At the same time, we had a high number of departures during the midday peak, all of which had to be de-iced - 201 aircraft of 173 departures were de-iced. Usually around 70 machines per day have to be de-iced during the winter months and the temperatures are significantly colder and the snow is drier, which means that the de-icing process can be completed more quickly. We regret the waiting time for the travelers, ultimately the safety of the passengers is always in the foreground. "

Delays and delays are annoying for everyone involved, but the focus is always on safety. All passengers, crew members and aircraft were able to leave Vienna safely and have arrived safely at their destinations. A one-hour delay, for example, shouldn't matter, because it's better to wait a bit and take off safely and arrive rather than take a risk. Fortunately, 99,99 percent of the captains make no compromises here.