Why snow causes so many problems at Schiphol: De-icing shortages and frozen wings

Schiphol is facing major delays due to winter weather, but why can’t airplanes simply take off when it snows? De Telegraaf asked.

Extremely snowy conditions throughout the Netherlands in recent days have canceled hundreds of flights a day, grounding operations at one of Europe’s busiest airports. Snow at the airport has meant that aircraft have to taxi for much longer when departing from runways such as the Kaagbaan, which is located on the opposite side of the airport.

In freezing conditions, mechanical parts and flaps on an aircraft’s wings can freeze solid. “It is extremely dangerous to fly with ice on the wings. The airflow around the wing is disrupted. The aircraft then stalls and crashes,” Joris Melkert, a lecturer in aerospace engineering at Delft University of Technology, told De Telegraaf.

To prevent that, an aircraft must first be cleared of ice with warm water and then treated with a layer of antifreeze. It takes between 10 minutes and half an hour to de‑ice an aircraft, causing long queues to form toward the de‑icing locations. De Telegraaf reports that Schiphol chose not to install such de‑icing facilities at every runway because of the cost. The current location lies outside normal airport operations.

On Tuesday, the situation at Schiphol grew even more severe when KLM warned that its supply of de‑icing fluid was running low. The Dutch airline, which handles most de‑icing operations for departing aircraft at the airport, said the fluid used to remove snow and ice was in danger of running out after days of continuous use, forcing the airline to cancel more flights. Staff were sent to Germany to collect additional supplies, and Eurocontrol warned that up to 70 percent of Wednesday’s flights could be scrapped if conditions did not improve.

By Wednesday morning, KLM announced it had secured enough de‑icing fluid to keep servicing aircraft departing Schiphol. More than 100,000 liters of fluid were reported to be in transit to the airport to ensure the safe departure of flights, even as more than 700 flights had already been canceled due to the snowy conditions.

“This domino effect causes Schiphol to completely seize up on days like these with snow. We are the laughingstock of Europe,” a KLM employee, speaking on condition of anonymity, told De Telegraaf.

Each de‑icing location has four elevated platforms available that spray aircraft with water cannons. According to a KLM spokesperson, there are sufficient staff and equipment for the current number of de‑icing locations, but the bottleneck persists. The airline declined to comment on whether more permanent de‑icing locations should be added.

The severe winter weather has not eased. Meteorologists forecast continued snowfall across the Netherlands on Wednesday and Thursday, with temperatures at or below freezing.

The airport’s parent company, Royal Schiphol Group, is 70 percent owned by the Dutch State, 20 percent by the municipality of Amsterdam, and just over 2 percent is held by Rotterdam, with the rest reserved by the company’s treasury.