Why are you still sitting on the tarmac getting de-iced, the way you were in the last storm and the one before that—the way passengers were three decades ago?
It's a given that winter weather snarls air travel, generating flight cancellations in the thousands with every major snowstorm. There was Boston last week, under 24.6 inches, and today the East Coast woke up to a mix of snow and freezing rain after it battered Chicago, with more than 5,200 flights canceled so far.
But even when you’re on the plane and ready to go, the ritual de-icing conga line can add plenty of extra, maddening time to a flight. Board, taxi, line up, wait, inch ahead, wait, be sprayed, mosey out to the runway. If there’s particularly hellacious congestion, your pilot might be forced to return for a second treatment. De-icing as we've known it for many years creates time-consuming bottlenecks at big airports, costs enormous sums for chemicals and infrastructure, and then poses the environmental problem of managing millions of gallons of chemicals that flow onto airport ramps.
Isn't there a better way?
More details here.
