Reply To: Dynamic pricing for Avios redemptions

[LD27]

JDB wrote:

@LD27 – LHR can’t really win though can they.

As with any organisation, they have to plan for what is reasonably foreseeable and LHR that plan is agreed between the airport, airlines and regulator. Zurich has more snow days than non snow days in the winter months so has vastly more people and equipment dedicated to that task. Do you think it is appropriate or, more importantly, are you willing to pay (through the passenger service charge) for massive redundancy, just in case, or is it better to plan for the expected LHR worst case.

Snow ploughs are extremely expensive to buy and they need to be stored onsite, maintained and staff trained to operate them. You then need huge numbers of people to deal with all the areas the snow ploughs can’t reach and they need training to use the right equipment and right products safely on an airfield. LHR has nearly 3 x the number of passengers and only two runways vs three at Zurich so if a runway has to be closed to be cleared of snow, given the airport is at capacity, it will inevitably cause considerable delays and cancellations. It’s likely that visibility potentially associated with the snow will also reduce landings on the open runway. How would you propose to resolve that? If you run a relatively quieter airport with half the number of movements but an extra runway, it’s a whole lot easier!

This is the current Snow Plan:-

https://www.heathrow.com/content/dam/heathrow/web/common/documents/company/team-heathrow/airside/winter-operations/Airside_SMS_Plan_AdverseWeather%20-%20Heathrow%20Snow%20Plan%20Airside%202024-25.pdf

Sorry I didn’t respond sooner but have been travelling across Europe and had a few issues with Swiss and German trains.

I was not complaining about LHR and their lack of equipment to deal with snow. My point was to do with the issues with BA IT and would it cope with the possibility of dynamic pricing for Avios tickets, a sale and delays due weather at LHR all happening in the month of January.