How Pearson’s Runways Stay Clear for Takeoff All Winter Long

Every winter, Toronto Pearson’s meticulous snow- and ice-clearing crews play a critical role in ensuring our runways and taxiways are safe and ready for use. We spoke with Airfield Maintenance Manager Alan Sherwood about how his teams tame the elements each winter at Canada’s busiest airport. 

How big is your winter operations team? 

A seasonal workforce of roughly 65 joins us from October till April for our snow operations. This winter, we have 176 people in Airfield Maintenance focused mainly on plowing, sweeping and blowing snow off the airport's 4.9 million square meters of runways, taxiways and apron areas. We have a fleet of 106 specialized snow removal vehicles, including 40 plow-sweeper-blowers (PSBs), 12 snow blowers and 14 chemical and sand deicing trucks. 

How do you prepare for winter? 

Once we’ve updated our snow and ice plans and procedures, we meet with our internal operational teams to go through mock-winter event scenarios. We also spend a lot of time checking equipment because we tend to have mechanical issues that need fixing from our Fleet Management department after sitting over the summer.  

What happens when a snowstorm is forecast? 

Twelve hours before a winter storm, we'll make sure we have extra staff scheduled and equipment ready. In a really heavy snow event, when travel to or from the airport will be affected, we'll get hotel rooms for the staff because we have a lot of people who commute long distances for work. 

How do you clear snow from the runways at an active airport? 

We coordinate with Air Traffic Control because they need to build in slots for the aircraft to land on different runways. To clear a runway, eight PSBs will move in a staggered line, followed by two blowers, a chemical spray deicing truck and an inspection vehicle. That vehicle provides pilots with information for braking by measuring runway friction with an electronic recording decelerometer. Depending on the winds, the crews work the runways in an east-west or north-south pattern. If a vehicle accidentally crosses into an active runway, a sensor posted along the runway alerts the air traffic controller. We're able to clear a 10,000-foot-long runway in roughly 15 minutes; it takes about 90 minutes to clear and treat all five runways.  

How does the type of snow affect its removal? 

The weather forecast, including the winds and the type of precipitation anticipated, drives our tactics. Light, fluffy snow is easy to move. Heavy, wet snow is harder to push and blow out into the field. Changing conditions such as freezing and thawing can also be challenging and require us to change our removal methods midway.   

What’s the most challenging aspect of this work? 

If it’s -10° Celsius with 10 centimeters of snow, that’s pretty straightforward for us. But say it's mild and wet, the temperature suddenly dips, there's a flash freeze and then it starts snowing — those transitions become challenging.