Local newspaper Adresseavisen reports that Norwegian airports are among the best in the world at keeping air traffic going, even in adverse winter conditions.
Airport Director Lasse Bardal at Trondheim Airport Værnes agrees, and thanks his world class equipment, skilled crew and their careful planning for the fact that Værnes and other Norwegian airports handle snow very well.
For him, it is incomprehensible that a large airport like Heathrow had to close because of 2,5 centimetre of snow just before Christmas.
– The amounts of snow Heathrow had is an everyday situation for us. We can clear our own runway in 15 minutes, which also means that we would have cleared Heathrow's largest runway within 30 minutes, he says to Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK).
The largest runway at Heathrow is 900 meters longer than the one at Værnes.
– Best in the world
Around one million passengers were delayed while Heathrow lost the fight against King Winter.
Gatwick and Luton Airport also struggled with the snow and had to close, just like several other European airports.
Parts of the U.S. and Russia were also hit by winter chaos last week, and airport director Bardal thinks it is strange that such small amounts of snow can paralyze large airports for days.
In his opininon, the air traffic at a Norwegian airports would be running as normal in the same weather conditions.
– We are among the best in the world when it comes to handling snow, simply because we have a lot of it. We train our crew at these kinds of situations comprehensively, and there are probably many who look to Norway when it comes to snow removal and de-icing during winter, he says to NRK.no.
Different expertise
Bardal says that the chaos at Heathrow could have been greatly reduced if the snow crew in London had the same experience as the crew in Trondheim.
– The situation would have changed radically. But at the same time, I must add that we have an experience, an expertise and a lot of equipment that other airports in Europe do not have, the airport director says.
He believes that one open runway would have kept a significant part of the traffic going, even if it had continued snowing.
However, he also understands that snow problems are a tough task for foreign airports that normally do not handle snow.
– You cannot invest money in a large crew just for them to sit and wait for the two days of snow per year. We have great amounts of snow durig the Norwegian winter, and therefore we have both the necessary personnel and equipment to handle it, Bardal says to NRK.
