The Best of the Biggest U.S. Airports

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

Not to get into a pissing contest about this, but I have sat on the plane during inclement weather waiting for ramp crews to get the ok to move the jetway to the plane, been delayed at baggage claim and have seen numerous takeoff delays where ramp operations have been shut down because of potential weather issues. . . what year was it when you last worked???

. . .

I had this happen to me this past August. There was lightning nearby and they shut everything down until weather cleared up. Including ground crews.

[Will O' Wisp]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

Not to get into a pissing contest about this, but I have sat on the plane during inclement weather waiting for ramp crews to get the ok to move the jetway to the plane, been delayed at baggage claim and have seen numerous takeoff delays where ramp operations have been shut down because of potential weather issues. . . what year was it when you last worked???

. . .

Depends on how you want to define things. I haven't personally fueled an aircraft in years, but I was supervising ground operations safety at an airport earlier today.

Now I have to ask, on any of these occasions did someone physically tell you "We can't take off because the weather is too hazardous for the ground crews"? Or did you just look out the window and assumed you knew what was going on?

Weather can be a hazard for ramp operations. I know it, I've seen it. But it's very rarely dangerous, more of an annoyance. High winds tend to rock jetbridges, high enough and it can be better to wait for a lull just to avoid damaging the aircraft. Snow gums up everything, even after you clear it the concrete tends to stay pretty slick. Lots of delays there. There are a million and a half reasons your baggage took forever, some weather related and some not.

But to return to the actual point of discussion here, any weather event that could shut down ramp operations would have already long since made aircraft operations impossible. Thunderstorms, wind, snow, what have you. Now if you looked out the window and saw some of your ramp crew packing up with a turn of the weather, more likely than not they were still fully capable of continuing operations. In fact, there's a fair chance that what happened is they'd simply finished their jobs and were going inside to get out of the rain. Without the constant driving force of arrivals and departures, there just isn't a whole lot for ground crewman to do.

So just to reiterate, airliners don't fly through thunderstorms and ramp workers don't melt in the rain.

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp

Now I have to ask, on any of these occasions did someone physically tell you "We can't take off because the weather is too hazardous for the ground crews"? Or did you just look out the window and assumed you knew what was going on?

On each of the incidents they noted specifically that the "ramp was closed" until the weather passed. . .

. . .

[Will O' Wisp]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

On each of the incidents they noted specifically that the "ramp was closed" until the weather passed. . .

. . .

I should thank you really, your posting annoyed me enough to go out and learn something new. I reviewed my own company's safety procedures, and as I mentioned a few posts back all they have to say on the subject is to avoid refueling while lightning is in the area. But seeing as that down in SD we're currently experiencing a hefty rainstorm I had a great oppotunity to quiz some other companies on the airport about their regs. Most were similar to ours, but one guy who'd worked at DFW mentioned they had some sort of automatic system up there that detected lightning strikes and if one occurred within 15 miles they'd halt all ramp operations for 30 mins. Seems like overreacting to me, but if you happened to fly with that airline (or another with similar procedures) at one of the the airports with that system you might get ramp closures. Our airport doesn't though, and so they more or less operate identically to us in practice because of this.

Airliners flying through thunderstorms is still bullcrap though, even confirmed that with a few pilots.