The President of Iceland’s wife, Dorrit Moussaieff, recently commended two Icelandair pilots for their efforts after a flight was grounded due to bad weather conditions. Mrs. Moussaieff posted a short blog on The Huffington Post website on December 24, applauding the pilots actions.
According to Mrs. Moussaieff, when planes were grounded in England and across most of Europe, due to bad weather conditions and snowy runways, the pilots of an Icelandair plane took matters into their own hands after they were informed they could not take off.
Apparently, there was not enough snow clearing equipment available to clear a path for the refuelling car. However, rather than face an overnight stay, the captain and co-pilot each took a shovel and got to work. About 15 minutes later, the path was clear, the plane refuelled and was able to take off.
Mrs. Moussaieff wrote, “That is how Icelandic pilots deal with winter challenges. Perhaps Britain and other countries could learn from that example.”
Without wanting to take anything away from the Icelandic pilots, the reason why Heathrow closed was the lack of investment by the airport in snow clearing equipment (their CEO was paid nearly £1 million in wages before bonus yet only half a million pounds was spent on equipment). Consequently, the airport may face a huge fine because of the disuption of cancellations. In the Northwest of England where I live, I am proud to say that, inspite of snow falls equal to Heathrow, both Manchester and Liverpool Airports (owned by local councils) stayed open and planes pretty much ran to schedule.
Yeah, maybe they could send the two pilots to clear Heathrow. I’m sure they could clear the 20km of runway just as fast as the 10meters they did in this case.
Sometimes I think Icelandic politicians must have been born on a remote farm, far from civilisation.