arctic freeze back east means 'big time' impact on yvr travellers
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as a polar vortex latches its icy grip on eastern canada this weekend, the southeast parts of the u.s. are getting pummelled by a once-in-a-generation winter storm that has at least 16 states declaring a state of emergency.
the one-two punch weather combo has walloped air travel across the continent. the tracking site flight aware listed 3,846 cancellations for flights in or out of the u.s. on saturday, and a further 8,606 on sunday. for pearson international in toronto alone, it showed 621 cancellations over saturday and sunday. there were 30 flights cancelled at yvr this weekend.
while the temperature has dipped below freezing in the lower mainland for the first time this year, -1 c is downright balmy compared to the -30 c expected in toronto or the -45 c in the northern parts of ontario and the prairies.
that doesn’t mean yvr won’t be affected by the weather events. the complex ecosystem that encompasses all aspects of air travel means toronto’s frozen woes will still hit us on the west coast.
“oh yeah — big time,” said richard banton, a flow manager in vancouver airport’s operations.
“our entire flight schedule is depending on the performance of montreal, toronto, other airports to get those aircraft out of there, to get here, and for us to have an on-time departure.”
richard banton, manager of operations airport flow at yvr in richmond.
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vancouver is a gateway airport, with the majority of its traffic originating elsewhere, making it a busy, congested pivot point that relies on extreme scheduling to run smoothly. flights scheduled to land in or leave vancouver that had their slot written in stone months ago.
that makes weather events extremely taxing on the system. the blanket of fog that draped over the region last week dropped the airport’s capacity by about two-thirds. everything from slow travel by passengers to the airport, to tarmac visibility for both planes and outside workers, to expanding the spacing between incoming planes had its effect.
“weather is obviously a big piece of the monitoring that our teams do daily, but also weekly and a two-week, long-range forecast,” said yvr’s chief operations officer, andy margolis.
“that weather can vary from snow to fog to heavy rains to excess heat as well. we have a bunch of contingency plans that we rehearse. … we monitor all of that.”
the daily flow team is situated in the operations control centre and watches everything like big brother. cameras monitor feeder routes to the airport. the availability of transit and taxis is constantly checked. the time baggage is taking to move from the plane to the carousel, or from the check-in desk to the plane, is monitored. security screening times and staffing levels.
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evolving flight etas because of weather might mean co-ordinating with the airline to have their pilots increase speed to make up lost time, or swap arrival gates so connecting passengers can be closer to their next flight.
“we’re monitoring anything can impact those flow events across the aviation system,” said margolis. “it’s really that integrated picture end-to-end.”
mike tyson once said it wasn’t the hardest punches that knocked you out, it was the ones you don’t see coming. it’s the same with weather.
“if you know it’s coming, it’s mitigated. it’s the stuff that you don’t know is coming, that gets you,” said banton. “it doesn’t even have to be a ridiculously extreme weather event. it doesn’t have to get into the exaggerated 20 centimetres of snow and -20; something like two centimetres and maybe a temperature dip in 15 degrees; if you weren’t able to forecast that, or to see it, that will have a huge impact.”
u.s. departures terminal at vancouver international airport.
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most are predicted far in advance thanks to the meteorological networks and technology available to the airports, which allows them to mitigate the worst of the effects. at pearson, they’re preparing for the weekend storm and the incoming yellow snow alert with warming stations for outside workers, along with food and hotels so airport staff can avoid travel themselves. runways will need constant clearing, and the glycol content in their de-icing fluid has been upped to over 50 per cent to deal with the uncommonly cold temperatures.
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“it’ll be horrible to work in toronto this weekend,” banton said, chuckling, having moved west two years ago.
for those travelling this weekend or expecting arrivals at yvr, checking the arrival updates for the most up-to-date information is advised. the lingering hangover of cancelled flights will reverberate even for a few days after the weather event, as the airlines and terminal try to catch up.
“i think the public intellectually gets that when there is adverse weather, it is going to affect running in operations, because it’s just not a normal, sunny, uninterrupted day,” said margolis. “we just want to make sure that the impact is clearly articulated well in advance, so people can take control and make plans to adjust as a result.”
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