ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — It's not always an easy task to keep the airport runways clear of snow in the post-snowmageddon world.
The blizzard that started Jan. 17 and extended into the next day dumped approximately 76 centimetres of snow at St. John's International Airport. For five days, there were no commercial flights at Newfoundland and Labrador's busiest airport. They finally resumed Wednesday, Jan. 22.
Shout out to our crews and mechanics working around the clock to clear the 1.12 mil sqm of asphalt, and our infrastructure and emergency response crews who are doing an outstanding job to get us prepared for commercial flights as soon as possible. #Snowmageddon2020 #yyt #nlwx pic.twitter.com/7vzBSed8iO
— St. John's Airport (@stjohnsairport) January 19, 2020
According to a report recently filed to Transport Canada’s Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System (CADORS), a tractor assisting with snowclearing became stuck on the threshold of a runway early in the afternoon on Jan. 23. The runway was active and the only one available for arrivals, with another closed for maintenance and another still snow-covered.
A Jazz flight from Halifax was approaching the airport and had to delay its arrival while airport staff dealt with the problem on the runways. According to the CADORS report, the tractor was pulled out sooner than staff had initially anticipated, and the flight from Halifax was only delayed a few minutes.
According to data from Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), there was 120 centimetres of accumulated snow recorded at St. John's International Airport as of Jan 23. As of this Thursday, that figure had fallen to 64 centimetres.
This was the second time a stuck vehicle delayed a flight from arriving that month. In the early hours of Jan. 13, an airport vehicle was stuck within a runway-protected area, according to another CADORS report. This delayed the arrival of a WestJet flight from Halifax. The CADORS report did not specify the length of the delay.
Since the beginning of December through to Feb. 6, more than 260 centimetres of snowfall was recorded at the airport, based on ECCC data. Shortly after commercial flight activity resumed, St. John's International Airport reported that its winter operations team used more than 30 pieces of equipment to clear the runways, roads and parking lots following the blizzard.
Twitter: @CBNAndrew
