Aviation consultant Michael Boyd criticized DEN's handling of the blizzard, saying an airport with six runways should be able to handle more flights more quickly than it is.

Normally, DEN can handle 120 aircraft per hour. It began operations today handling 10 aircraft per hour, and hopes to get up to 30 aircraft per hour by this afternoon.

Boyd said MSP and SLC would not have this slow of a rate, despite having fewer runways.

Quoting Ssides (Thread starter): Boyd said MSP and SLC would not have this slow of a rate, despite having fewer runways.

I don't know for sure, but DIA's runways are spread out and likely longer than MSP or SLC's. You practically land in Nebraska and taxi to the terminal. The sheer size of the airport isn't particularly condusive to allowing snow plows to clear snow quickly. In blizzard conditions, it isn't safe for the workers to clear the runways anyway since the conditions can change so quickly. The last thing you need is deserted snow plows or other equipment littering the runway or taxiways.

One word: Wind

That is what the problem is. You can plow a runway all you want...the wind is going to redeposit the snow in a matter of minutes. So you just have to wait until it stops to start digging out.

I just came from DIA. What a freakin clusterfuck the entire area around the airport is in! There is no gas within 15 miles of the airport and the rental car lots are overflowing with returns. Rental car rentals are lining up on the rental car road. Pena Blvd is bone dry however. I just spent 2.5 hours digging my car out from the Wally Park parking lot after driving back all night from Las Vegas.

Seriously, Michael Boyd seems to be nothing more than a hub of negativity. I'm not saying that he's not correct on certain things. But his overall tone and tendency to criticize while offering rather limited solutions offers little encouragement.

The problem wasn't the runways per se. It was the gate area. Did he even see the pictures of what the ramps looked like with the snow piled up.

I'm sorry folks, but I have read and listened to Boyd before and he does not impress me with Aviation/Airline knowledge. There are a few hundred people on A-net that know more then he does about the industry.
The News Media seems to think hes smart on the subject but we are talkiing the news media here.....bottom the barrell in their graduate class.

That's my opinion..whats yours?
safe

Quoting Isitsafenow (Reply 5): That's my opinion..whats yours? safe

Couldn't agree more,if he was so damned brilliant or even half as bright as he believes some airline would have hired him as Pres by now...all these "experts" like him and Mary Schiavo  

Even if the airport stays open, the airlines do not want to risk getting their aircraft stuck, so flights get cancelled on a wholesale level just with the forecast. Same thing happens everywhere when snow is predicted.

R they operating 24 hour ops at DEN now to try & play catch up ?

Quoting Australia1 (Reply 8):

DEN is always a 24 Hour operation. Im not sure I understand your question.

Quoting SkyWest700 (Reply 9): DEN is always a 24 Hour operation. Im not sure I understand your question.

Sorry, what I meant is ...

r there any scheduled flights normally arriving or departing between say 2359 & 0500.

Can't find any in our CRS ?

the problem is NO planes and NO crews, this is the last week of a work month and most crews are timed out and not legal to fly more hours.

Someone needs to give his pencil pushing butt a shovel

Quoting JetJeanes (Reply 12): Someone needs to give his pencil pushing butt a shovel

It is a long standing war between Mr. Boyd and DIA. He has been a fierce critic of the airport.

What can you do? It's built now. I don't think they will tear it down.

mariner

Quoting NW748i (Reply 3): But his overall tone and tendency to criticize while offering rather limited solutions offers little encouragement.

Oh I'm sure he has plenty of "solutions"... it's just that as a consultant he's not going to spill them until his fee is paid for. Come to think of it, his constant complaining is probably nothing more than a bit of *business development* = convince potential client (or mark) they have a problem (usually with a bunch of fancy words and powerpoint presentations) and then convince them you're the only one smart enough to sell them a solution... that's how the consulting world works  

Check this website out: http://www.huhcorp.com/

Quoting Isitsafenow (Reply 5): I'm sorry folks, but I have read and listened to Boyd before and he does not impress me with Aviation/Airline knowledge. There are a few hundred people on A-net that know more then he does about the industry. The News Media seems to think hes smart on the subject but we are talkiing the news media here.....bottom the barrell in their graduate class. That's my opinion..whats yours? safe

Oh... you mean the aviation God himself.   He nausiates me.

By the way he needs to either get or hire a better editor. Just read his site for a while and you'll understand.

While I'm on a rant... I would like his opinion of Greyhound or Amtrak closing thier Denver operation too. Why not be negative about all the surrounding airports that were closed as well. Maybe he should critisize the highway patrol for closing the highways or even the USPS for cancelling all mail ops for 2 days. Or better yet why not critisize all the Colorado residents for staying home during this blizzard. Its just a little snow right?

Someone needs to take his ass right out to the middle of one of the DEN runways and hand him a shovel.

Quoting Brick (Reply 2): One word: Wind

Exactly.

What the heck is Boyd ranting about? He just lost a lot of credibility with me on this. The fact he couldn't see the impact of the rather unusual wind or more precisely wind transported snow... ugh...

Denver was a mess. I'm sure some armchair quarterback will come up with a real plan on how it could have been handled better. Said quarterback to quietly e-mail the plan to DEN authorities so that they can train for a repeat of this amazing event.

Boyd... Just went down ten notches in my book. Apparently, he doesn't realize the valor of silence...

Lightsaber

Maybe Boyd is not an expert on snow removal. But he has a point, and that is, DEN should _never_ shut down due to snow. Even if it takes a hundred million dollars worth of snow plows, or a nuclear heated runway, it should not happen. DEN should be ready for anything, which MSP and SLC and BUF probably are.

Quoting Supa7E7 (Reply 17): Maybe Boyd is not an expert on snow removal. But he has a point, and that is, DEN should _never_ shut down due to snow. Even if it takes a hundred million dollars worth of snow plows, or a nuclear heated runway, it should not happen. DEN should be ready for anything, which MSP and SLC and BUF probably are.

Sometimes, not even the best technology can beat mother nature. Even if the airport manages to stay open, airlines are not going to send their aircraft there and risk getting them stuck. Also, if airport personel can't get to work from their homes, there's little you can do about it.

Quoting NW748i (Reply 3): Seriously, Michael Boyd seems to be nothing more than a hub of negativity. I'm not saying that he's not correct on certain things. But his overall tone and tendency to criticize while offering rather limited solutions offers little encouragement.

Well said. I remember in the midor early 90's when he said OH would be out of business in focusing on an all RJ operation. Hmmmmm

DEN was taking 10-12 hrs to clean just each runway. Volume of snow and winds. Also, many DEN employees stuck at home....operating 24-48 hrs into the event with less than full compliment. Also snow had to be trucked away rather than just piled up. They do not have the sophisticated equipment that ORD has...high speed cleaning equipment and huge snow melters.

Boyd is fine on financial stuff...but not impressed with his organization's operational knowledge.

As noted above, how are people that work at the airport, including the snow plowers supposed to get to the airport to do their work when such a huge blizzard? You cannot have the same employee working the plows and related equipment 24+ hours without a break, it is unsafe and may make things worse. Remember what happened at DTW a number of years ago, with huge backups? Part of the problem was that employees couldn't get to work due the the heavy snow.
Get real. This was a huge event at DEN and they probably did the best they could under the circumstances. I do hope the airport authority, airlines and vendors there and the customers themselves learn from this for future bad blizzards when predicted. Sometimes though, there is little else one can do when you get a storm of this magintude.

Mike Boyd lost this war long long ago. I agree with a lot of what he said, but IIRC, he was one of the paid shills from the faction that wanted to leave Stapleton be.

I don't think there is anyone in Denver who would want that old airport back, given that we are seeing projects that cost the same as DEN did just to move runways, or add a single terminal.

As for the blizzard, I live in a major suburb of Boulder, and the snow is so bad here, that I still have yet to see a single plow on my road. Hence I went out and digged out 3ft of snow from the street myself, so my car could get in and out.

Twas a nasty blizzard, but frankly, I think everyone at the Airport did the responsible thing, esp when you consider what happened to pena, to the tens of thousands of people who got stuck on US-36.

Quoting LTBEWR (Reply 21): Get real. This was a huge event at DEN and they probably did the best they could under the circumstances.

Yup there is no doubt people put in tons of OT and did their very best. Boyd's question of planning remains. What is DEN's plan for big blizzards? It's probably a matter of some pride for DEN that it can handle a lot of snow without closing. This blowing powder just couldn't be tamed, sounds like.

Quoting Ssides (Thread starter): Aviation consultant Michael Boyd criticized DEN's handling of the blizzard, saying an airport with six runways should be able to handle more flights more quickly than it is.

Mike is right!
I have lived in Canada and if they were as inefficient as the DIA ops was then anything North of Florida would shut down 13 months a year.

The mayor and staff need to resign.
This is the same level of inneficiency as was at New Orleans.

Governmental dead wood.

Quoting Supa7E7 (Reply 17): Even if it takes a hundred million dollars worth of snow plows, or a nuclear heated runway, it should not happen. DEN should be ready for anything, which MSP and SLC and BUF probably are.

New DEN conspiracy theory?

The only negative I have about DEN ops is they really should have those large snow melters instead of having to truck it all away....waste of resources trucking it away.

Does BUF go through this every time it snows? They get a heck of a lot more snow then Denver could ever dream.

Quoting JumboBumbo (Reply 14): Check this website out: http://www.huhcorp.com/

That website is frickin' hilarious!!!! I'm sending it to my friends! Thanks for the good laugh!!!

Quoting EmSeeEye (Reply 15): Or better yet why not critisize all the Colorado residents for staying home during this blizzard. Its just a little snow right?

He'd be criticizing himself because he lives in Evergreen. I live south of the airport and when I left for Arkansas on Friday morning our neighborhood still hadn't been plowed, we were lucky to make it to the tracks the way my driveway is positioned.

But given the amount of money Boyd has, he's probably laughin it up vacationing somewhere warm. After all, the jet he flies out of APA would have gotten off at 6pm on thursday evening  

Quoting MaverickM11 (Reply 27): Does BUF go through this every time it snows? They get a heck of a lot more snow then Denver could ever dream.

I'm not from Buffalo but I'm currently living not too far away. From my recollection, BUF has a generally well kept operation even with snow. They get a lot more total snow annually, but it's usually more spread out over the winter. A couple of inches here, 6-12 inches there...

Airport is also smaller, and the locals are very used to winter driving. So the airport workers getting there isn't usually an issue. Also, NYSDOT has one of the better ranked DOTs in the nation and knows how to handle snow plowing jobs for roadways, including the NYS Thruway (I-90 through NY).

Bottom line: BUF generally keeps up well unless it becomes really bad with visibility or an abnormally large amount of snowfall is dumped in a short time.

Basically, if they close any part of the Thruway in the area, it's a reasonable bet BUF will also be closed. That happens very rarely, such as the insane pair of back-to-back blizzards several years ago that dumped about 7 to 8 feet of snow.

I'm not real sure Denver really had even a chance (even with more tools and planning) to handle something this extreme. I'm thinking about the sheer volume of blowing snow, visibility, sheer size of Denver, suburbs, airport itself, and all the logistics.

BUF was cited as a better example, but BUF usually has it somewhat easier, so...

(BUF = much smaller airport, fewer runways, fewer taxiways, much more compact, individual snowstorms not usually bad, etc.)

Quoting Isitsafenow (Reply 5): I'm sorry folks, but I have read and listened to Boyd before and he does not impress me with Aviation/Airline knowledge. There are a few hundred people on A-net that know more then he does about the industry. The News Media seems to think hes smart on the subject but we are talkiing the news media here.....bottom the barrell in their graduate class. That's my opinion..whats yours?

While I do occasionally disagree with Boyd's viewpoints, you have to admit, the man gets paid big bucks for a reason. I seriously doubt that the opinions of a few hundred people on A-net are taken as seriously as his. A few dozen for that matter. All in all, he's been right more times than not when you look back at his statements over the years.

Quoting BillReid (Reply 24): Mike is right! I have lived in Canada and if they were as inefficient as the DIA ops was then anything North of Florida would shut down 13 months a year. The mayor and staff need to resign. This is the same level of inneficiency as was at New Orleans. Governmental dead wood.

YYC is horrible with snow removal, especially in the ramp areas.

Quoting Supa7E7 (Reply 17): Maybe Boyd is not an expert on snow removal. But he has a point, and that is, DEN should _never_ shut down due to snow. Even if it takes a hundred million dollars worth of snow plows, or a nuclear heated runway, it should not happen. DEN should be ready for anything, which MSP and SLC and BUF probably are.

Even if they had all the gadgets you describe, the wind was blowing so hard Wednesday that the deice fluid would not even stay on the airplanes. Once the first bank of flights got in and couldn't leave, they ran out of gates. The folks in MSP are the world champs at snow removal and have gone to Amsterdam to teach them how it's done. Even those guys would not have been able to keep DEN open.

The problem is similar to Burt Lancaster's character's problem in "Airport" (other than his marriage). He rants about it to Dean Martin. DEN does not get that kind of snowfall often enough to merit spending the money on the equipment to deal with it. ORD. MSP. BUF and some other airports regularly get deep snow and have more equipment to deal with it. It can happen at DEN, but only once every five to ten years. They would need to have even more snow clearing equipment than ORD but they would only rarely need to use it.

Look, the fact of the matter is that no airport is capable of handling a blizzard that drops 2 - 3 feet of snow accompanied by whipping winds. I'm sure DEN's snow removal crews are working themselves ragged trying to keep the airport running smoothly, but weather is weather and there's only so much you can do about it.

As for boyd, I'd like to point out the blizzard that struck Chicago in 1999. Only 22" of snow fell (less than DEN) and here is a portion of NCDC report:

Quote: The storm's impact on commercial aviation was staggering at Chicago and Detroit. Northwest Airlines reported than more than 1,100 flights were canceled during January 2-4, and United Airlines canceled 60% of its O'Hare flights during the 2-day storm. O'Hare Airport had 300,000 travelers stranded for periods of hours up to 4 days. Costs were staggering, in the millions of dollars, and the stress on travelers was immense, particularly since the storm occurred on the weekend a day after New years Eve.

Quoting N353SK (Reply 34): As for boyd, I'd like to point out the blizzard that struck Chicago in 1999. Only 22" of snow fell (less than DEN) and here is a portion of NCDC report:

Correct. I went searching also for BUF, ORD, snow totals, and from what I can see, 22-23" was a record for ORD. Well, DEN got more than that, so we need to put these 'well, other airports can handle it" comments into perspective.

I see a record for MSP in 1991 for 28" ....so again, DEN was hardly a usual occurrence even for the Northerly airports.


Jimbo

I wonder if this dude reads the forums here on A.net...

MICHEAL BOYD = NEED FOR RELEVANCY


O'donnel=trump=boyd=wtraveler=need for relevancy.....


blah, blah, blah, blah blah.....


they're ALL that,

and a bag of,

....chips

Quoting LTBEWR (Reply 21): Remember what happened at DTW a number of years ago, with huge backups? Part of the problem was that employees couldn't get to work due the the heavy snow.

The problem at DTW during the infamous Jan 2-3 1999 Blizzard was quite different. This was largely due to the Davey Terminal set up that caused the problems.

Davey Terminal had narrow "alleyways" between the concourses that could only fit one DC-9 at a time and nothing much bigger. The other problem lies with the airport not sending inbound aircraft elsewhere but bringing them into DTW.

Aircraft were getting swamped in the alleyways and no one could go around them so that closed off some gate access. The planes that taxiied out now could not get back into their gate and other planes were arriving because the airport I don't believe fully closed until much later in the Blizzard. Of course at this point there were more planes than available gates.

This of course would never be a problem at DEN due to the way that the Terminals are built, so the width between Concourse A -B, as well as B-C is wide enough to fit 3 aircraft across (the same applied to the McNamara Terminal now at DTW, which is like DEN in the set up).

Quoting JayDub (Reply 25): New DEN conspiracy theory?

Oh you mean these guys?

http://www.geocities.com/Baja/5692/

Quoting NASCARAirforce (Reply 38): The problem at DTW during the infamous Jan 2-3 1999 Blizzard was quite different.

I remember driving from Ann Arbor back home just as that one started. When I started the car there was very light snow. Then about 10 minutes later when I got to M-14/US-23 I had to stop the car because the snow was coming to fast. The boneheads in their SUV were going right and left off the highway.

Anyway, Christmas Eve 2004 was pretty bad. My guess was suppose to arrive on the 23 and couldn't get in to DTW until the 25th. Perhaps this storm is what some of are are thinking about...(?)

While the criticism against DEN is probably unfair, given the unique nature of the weather, I'm left remembering that when the airport opened there were claims from local government about how operationally efficient it would be, pointing out that the design would allow it to operate through all types of weather.

Now maybe my memory is just really bad, but I've been caught at the airport during enough weather delays and irregular ops to wonder about the claims that were made about that ability to operate in all types of weather.

Quoting AADC10 (Reply 33): The problem is similar to Burt Lancaster's character's problem in "Airport"

   The exact same thought occured to me, as I'd just seen the movie for the bazillionth time the other night on cable. DEN is getting a lot of bad publicity over this, and I do think the press is guilty of piling on.

Quoting Christao17 (Reply 40): pointing out that the design would allow it to operate through all types of weather.

The airport can operate through all kinds of [reasonably bad] whether, it just doesn't operate at 100%   Also, just because the airport is open, it doesn't mean airlines are willing (and capable), to operate. Keep in mind that airport and airlines are two completely different and independent entities.

An airport could have the most expensive, best laid out plans, and the best equipment money can buy but if airlines aren't willing to operate during bad weather, all of that is money that goes to waste. Like everything else, there's a cost-benefit analysis in there somewhere that says it's best to just wait (or operate at a minimum), until the storm blows over.

Here at BOS we get pretty bad snow storms occasionaly and the airport does pretty well to stay open. Someone else in this thread mentioned BUF as well. But lets keep in mind none of these are of the size of DEN, and none are a hub airport.

Quoting Supa7E7 (Reply 17): Maybe Boyd is not an expert on snow removal. But he has a point, and that is, DEN should _never_ shut down due to snow. Even if it takes a hundred million dollars worth of snow plows, or a nuclear heated runway, it should not happen. DEN should be ready for anything, which MSP and SLC and BUF probably are.

WIND!!!!!!! Have you ever been in a blizzard with 1-2 inches per hour and 60+ mph wind. Jeez, people, WAKE THE HELL UP!

Quoting NW748i (Reply 39): I remember driving from Ann Arbor back home just as that one started. When I started the car there was very light snow. Then about 10 minutes later when I got to M-14/US-23 I had to stop the car because the snow was coming to fast. The boneheads in their SUV were going right and left off the highway.

The Jan 2 1999 storm started at DTW around 6am. I was working about a mile north of DTW when it hit. I heard (but couldn't see) planes taking off until I went home at 2pm that day - there were 30-40 mph winds in that storm on top of it.

Quoting NW748i (Reply 39): Anyway, Christmas Eve 2004 was pretty bad. My guess was suppose to arrive on the 23 and couldn't get in to DTW until the 25th. Perhaps this storm is what some of are are thinking about...(?)

The one I am talking about is the Jan 2 1999 blizzard, then there was the other one that caused problems at DTW in early Dec 2000. Both were due to the Davey Terminal.

The storm you are referring to hit around Midnight December 23 onto the 24 in 2004. I had just come in from Daytona the day before and was hanging with buddies in Royal Oak before Christmas Eve that night when the snow hit. I don't recall DTW having any major problems during that storm since the peak of it hit during night time hours.

Quoting Airbazar (Reply 42): Here at BOS we get pretty bad snow storms occasionaly and the airport does pretty well to stay open. Someone else in this thread mentioned BUF as well. But lets keep in mind none of these are of the size of DEN, and none are a hub airport.

...and looking at 24hr record snow totals for BOS and BUF, they really still hardly match the DEN storm.

Boyd really need to compare the DEN snow totals with all the other airports that only 'appear' to get worse snow every year - actually they rarely, if ever do.


Jimbo

My curiosity is more about the forecasting before the blizzard. Did any local forecasters see this coming? If not, I'd say DEN and UA have some room for forgiveness. UA had a big meterology center at their HQ, I'd love to know if they saw this coming. I still wonder why crews and aircraft weren't repositioned more to take the pressure of DEN. Only having ORD as their other mid-US hub doesn't help. But couldn't some additional capacity have been added at IAD and SFO, rather than waiting for DEN to reopen, and sendig bigger planes in there? Were most of those stuck in DEN connecting, or O&D traffic?

I hate to say this, but the vast majority of you are much more concerned with looking at the peachy side of things then the real side of things. He's an aviation consultant - his job is to find what's wrong, point it out, and deal with it. He gets paid to find what sucks and come up with ways to make it better...even if you don't always hear that. While it's great that everyone on this site loves aviation and going flying and talking to pilots and getting off on it all, the reality of the industry is that it is a business and it is flawed.
I also really appreciate how the majority of you weren't stuck in DIA or within 100 miles of it as I was. I was scheduled to be on a 10:28 AM flight out, with all flights after 10:30 cancelled.
From my experience, the truth was DIA DID A POOR JOB! We pushed back from the gate, headed for a taxiway and slammed into a snowdrift. It wasn't United's fault the snow had been allowed to accumulate there...NEWS FLASH: it was the airport's fault! The end result: 3 hours of hard labor digging the plane out only to return to the gate and be told we couldn't leave the airport.
If snowplows had been focusing on even 1 runway and set of taxiways to that runway as they did once the skies turned blue we wouldn't have had these issues... Pena Boulevard remained open during most of the storm - the airport was accessible. But the sad reality is that DIA failed to concentrate their efforts throughout the storm and the end result was thousands of flight cancellations during the second-worst travel period of the year.

How do we know that DIA wasn't prepared to handle this? Simple - the end result in the terminal building. 5000 people stranded in the airport overnight (thousands of others had gone to the only open hotels) were given nothing more than a thin blanket. For elderly (over 75), cots were available, but it was not announced were they could find them. Food and water were not delivered, and restaurants quickly began running out of food. Announcements were non-existent. When buses arrived on 12/21 to evacuate people to downtown nothing was ever said - it took a friend calling my cell phone to let me know that I could get out.

The truth is DIA failed. It's a nice airport - pretty to look at, but inefficient at some of what it should do best. Yes, this was the fourth-worst snowstorm to hit Denver ever, but the industry must be capable of handling these situations. I live in Denver and fly out of DIA every few weeks. For the most part they do a good job, but then again, when they fail it's very noticeable. If you don't like what somebody has to say, fine. Don't agree - you don't have to. But don't act like you're an authority on the subject when most of you are only aviation enthusiasts - you sound like 6 year olds unhappy because somebody just told you that 3+3 really doesn't equal 8. Hell, my bachelor's degree is in Aerospace and I don't even claim to be an expert.
Leave the talking to those who experienced the situation. The rest of you need to shutup and learn from first-hand experience.

Quoting TimeForFlight (Reply 47): Leave the talking to those who experienced the situation

LOL - perhaps you should do the same thing.

Didn't you just do exactly what you're telling everyone else not to do (in far more words)  

Oh, humbug!


Jimbo

Quoting TimeForFlight (Reply 47): I also really appreciate how the majority of you weren't stuck in DIA or within 100 miles of it as I was. I was scheduled to be on a 10:28 AM flight out, with all flights after 10:30 cancelled. From my experience, the truth was DIA DID A POOR JOB! We pushed back from the gate, headed for a taxiway and slammed into a snowdrift. It wasn't United's fault the snow had been allowed to accumulate there...NEWS FLASH: it was the airport's fault! The end result: 3 hours of hard labor digging the plane out only to return to the gate and be told we couldn't leave the airport.

Quoting Bond007 (Reply 48): Quoting TimeForFlight (Reply 47): Leave the talking to those who experienced the situation LOL - perhaps you should do the same thing. Didn't you just do exactly what you're telling everyone else not to do (in far more words)

Ah yes, you failed reading comprehension also. As I said, I was stuck in DIA for 30 hours without food, water, and my baggage, which still hasn't been returned (6 days after the fact!). The situation was dire, at best, and hopefully they will do a much better job handling thousands of stranded passengers as any multi-hub airport should be capable of doing year-round.