Pearson’s Resident Ice-Busters
Icy Canadian winters are a perennial challenge for travellers, but each year, the team at Pearson is ready. Boasting the world’s largest centralized aircraft deicing facility, Toronto Pearson is a global leader in winter aviation operations.
Recently, with temperatures dropping, we checked in with Diana Dolezal, Deicing Operations Associate Director, to learn more about the scale of the airport’s Central Deicing Facility (CDF) and how employees are ramping up to ensure a smooth and safe winter season. Here’s what she told us, by the numbers:
190 employees
The Deicing Operations team has approximately 190 members, 90 of whom are seasonal workers who join for the deicing season after undergoing eight weeks of in-class and practical training.
16,500 aircraft
The CDF can deice up to 60 aircraft per hour and more than 500 per day, which means an average of 16,500 planes each season.
46 Vestergaard deicing trucks
Pearson’s fleet of single-operator deicing trucks are driven by specialists who sit in an elevated cab and guide a spray arm to clean the aircraft with a glycol-based deicing fluid. Each truck is maintained by skilled CDF mechanics who perform annual maintenance activities in the months leading up to winter, ensuring everything from the vehicle's data-tracking systems to fluid heaters are in top shape.
12 million litres of deicing fluids
During an average Toronto Pearson winter, the CDF uses 12 million litres of deicing and anti-icing fluids, more than enough to fill four Olympic-sized swimming pools. These fluids are stored in 12 above-ground tanks. The CDF stores enough fluid onsite to sustain mission-critical operations over a three-day continuous snow or ice storm.
4 massive underground storage tanks
Most people are unaware of the complexity of the CDF's underground storage and collecting systems: Four enormous underground storage tanks have a combined capacity of approximately 19 million litres. The CDF’s contaminated fluids, including fluids sprayed and all snow, ice and rain accumulation at the facility, drain through 278 catch basins and manholes and eventually release into the tanks.
