Munich Airport Prepares for Winter with Delivery of 9 New Airblast Sweepers

To keep Munich Airport's extensive ramp and taxiway areas as well as the entire length of the runways free of snow, ice and slush, a large fleet of special vehicles operates during the cold months of the year.

Now, with winter not far off, the airport operating company FMG accepted delivery of nine brand-new airblast sweepers, high-performance machines manufactured by Aebi-Schmidt.

The imposing machines, each 12 meters long, are specially designed for the challenges of clearing taxiways and runways. They are capable of clearing a five-meter wide swathe in a single pass.

Each weighs more than 12 tonnes and is pulled by a tractor of the kind used in a tractor-trailer combination. Mounted ahead of the tractor is a nearly eight meter wide snow plough, positioned at an angle, that can clear a passage nearly six meters wide. The combined length of the tractor and airblast sweeper is close to 19 meters.

With the help of these snow-clearing beasts, the complete clearance of one of Munich Airport's nearly four kilometer runways takes just 30 minutes. In a single run, a runway with a width of 60 meters can be completely freed of snow.

A dozen of these mighty tandems with snow ploughs and airblast sweepers operate in a laterally staggered configuration.

They go into operation as soon as two to three millimeters of snow accumulates, and are complemented by snowblowers, which load the snow to be hauled away, and tractors with front-mounted plows and rear-mounted brooms.

The space to be cleared at Munich Airport amounts to over 4 million square meters: more than the total area of Munich's renowned Englischer Garten.

To ensure uninterrupted flight operations on the runways, taxiways and aprons, up to 179 Winter Services employees with their special equipment are deployed in every shift. The Munich Airport Winter Services can draw on a pool of 640 employees. Serving as the core crew of the airport’s Winter Services are some 390 farmers and truckers from the immediate vicinity of the airport. They work with more than 155 of their own vehicles to clear snow and truck it to special dumping areas. The winter services fleet has approximately 196 vehicles for the non-public and public areas.

For environmental reasons, priority is given to mechanical removal of ice and snow as opposed to chemical methods. The spraying of a de-icing agent is necessary only when there is a risk of surface icing on flight operation areas. On some surfaces quartz sand is spread instead of de-icing agent. On both sides of the runway, reinforced concrete gutters collect the melting fluids as they run off and channels them into holding basins. From there they are pumped in a controlled manner to the water treatment plant in Eitting.