Wrong de-icer blamed for flights chaos

Dublin Airport was hit with a second day of travel chaos after ground crews struggled with the wrong de-icer to clear piles of frozen slush from parking bays and taxiways.

Thousands of passengers were hit with cancellations and delays as ground crews were reduced to digging-out hard-packed clumps of ice because the de-icer failed to work.

Blizzards yesterday forced Dublin Airport Authority to close the main runway for around seven hours leading to more than 170 flights being axed.

Siobhan Moore, DAA spokeswoman, claimed services would return to normal today and blamed extreme weather conditions for the latest travel disruption.

“The normal de-icing fluid hasn’t been working,” Ms Moore said.

“The slush froze very rapidly and it’s very difficult to shift.

“What we’ve been doing is using gritters and sanding the area, to try and make it safe for use, and actually chiselling it off.”

DAA said 80 flights in and out of the airport were cancelled, although some due to the wintry weather in the UK.

Ryanair cancelled around 50 flights in and out of the airport and diverted others to Shannon and Cork, while Aer Lingus axed four of its services and re-routed one of its US-bound flights via Shannon.

Inbound flights were reduced as planes on the ground were not able to depart to free up parking spaces.

DAA said the de-icer, Potassium Acetate, is usually only needed to clear frost and light coverings of snow.

“We never get this (level of snow) ... Potassium Acetate works very well when you’ve got ice conditions, but when you’ve got the hard-packed frozen stuff that’s several inches thick, in some cases, it wasn’t helping to move the substance at all,” Ms Moore said.

Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said: “This total shambles is the making of the DAA monopoly and we call on them to compensate passengers for the costs which they now face as a result of their claims that the airport was operating normally when they failed to ensure aircraft could depart the airport.”

The low-fares airline demanded DAA explain why it did not clear the ramps and aircraft parking areas of snow during the night after it cleared the main runway.

But Ms Moore hit back claiming many Ryanair parking stands were cleared earlier in the day.

“So we’re bewildered that they can’t put forward their flights when that was the case,” she said.

Ms Moore said it had been eight years since the airport had been hit with the same level of snow but claimed a review would be carried out to determine how to improve services.

“Like everything else, you look back at these and you learn from situations like this,” Ms Moore said.

“Having said that we had every available resource out to help alleviate the difficulties this morning.

“When all incidents happen at the airport we always review them and see how things are done better next time.”

Meanwhile the capital enjoyed a bright but bitterly cold today with wintry showers confined only to the north and west of the country.

Temperatures hit a maximum of just six degrees in places, and are expected to plummet to as low as -4 tonight.