31.07.2003
Copenhagen Airport better positioned to handle bad weather 

On 5 and 6 January 2003, operations at Copenhagen Airport were paralysed by severe snowfall and unusual wind conditions that made it impossible for aircraft to take off from the airport’s two main runways.

As a result, some 1,000 passengers were forced to spend the night at the airport. Copenhagen Airports A/S did not then have the option of giving the airlines special permission to use its third runway, which runs across the two main runways but whose use is restricted during night hours.

However, following the snow-induced chaos in January, Copenhagen Airports A/S wrote a letter to the Danish Ministry of Transport requesting permission to use the cross-runway at night if such snow problems occurred again. Permission was granted.

Pleased

This Ministry of Transport authorisation will allow Copenhagen Airport to use cross-runway 12/30 under certain special weather and wind conditions. Aircraft may be directed to take off from the cross-runway in a north-easterly direction – and fly over a built-up area near the Copenhagen suburb of Taarnby – between 11 pm to 1 am or in the opposite direction out over the Øresund anytime at night, but only under extreme weather conditions.

“We are pleased to have received Ministry permission. With the new rules, we can avoid chaotic situations in the few cases when the weather is so bad that we are unable to use the main runways,” says Vice President Hans Christian Stigaard of Copenhagen Airports A/S.

Until now, night-time use of the runway has not been allowed, and the runway is only used very rarely during the daytime. However, certain wind conditions can sometimes make it necessary to use the cross-runway.

Runway 12/30 rarely used

“No one needs to worry that we will be using runway 12/30 all the time; that won’t be the case at all. We will only do so in very extreme situations, and for the same reason, only our chief executive, myself or the airport manager on duty will be able to authorize its use,” says Stigaard.

Danish Minister of Transport Flemming Hansen says that he is aware that “use of runway 12/30 produces noise that will be a nuisance to the people living in the area,” but he emphasises that, statistically, it should happen no more than a couple of times a year.

Copenhagen Airports A/S now faces the coming winter with great assurance that the airport will never again be shut down by snow like it did in January 2003, when aircraft and thousands of passengers were stranded.