OREANDA-NEWS. November 26, 2013. Incheon Airport hosted an event to pursue safe and thorough snow-removal for the coming winter season. The event was organized in cooperation with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Seoul Regional Aviation Administration and related organizations all of which gather together to promote awareness on safety in conducting snow-removal.

Effective snow-removal is emerging one of issues for the airport operation as weather becomes extreme. Unlike many, however, Incheon has never been closed down during the winters thanks to its readiness. Such a good performance is in stark contrast with situation in Frankfurt Airport where record high snow in March paralyzed its management, being ended up with close down for the time being.

Last winter was one of the most severe ones for Incheon as well. From November 2012 to March 2013, 65.8cm of snow fell, breaking the record. This is over 6 times last year’s snow fall, 10.9cm and 2.3 times the average snowfall over the past five years, 28.3cm. Further, icy roads and taxiways became obstacles in removing the snow as temperatures dropped to minus 10 degrees Celsius frequently. During the same period the number of days of abnormal temperature was 28, the highest number since its opening and 2.4 times the average over the past five years, 11.8 days.

Despite such unprecedented bad weathers, however, Incheon has been operated seamlessly and it increased the number of snow plows from 51 to 67 recently including compact typed snow-sweeping equipment to fight against heavy snow.

In addition, the corporation held joint workshops in cooperation with MOLIT, SRAA, airlines and ground handling providers, coming up with amended Snow Plan. Meanwhile Incheon has provided 10 times of snow-removing training to train a skilled workforce for snow-removing work.

“Staff members of Incheon airport are committed to safe flights through 24/7 preparedness in removing snow, even though it is expected that heavy snow following extremely low temperature would pose threat to the airport.” said Vice president of Facilities Division.