Heathrow spends £32m gearing up for snow chaos

Heathrow will have more equipment and more staff on hand to deal with bad weather this winter.

Heavy snow the Saturday before last Christmas led to near-closure of the airport and thousands of passengers had to camp out. Heathrow operator BAA today announced a "winter resilience programme".

It is investing £32.4million in implementing the new measures, which include tripling the number of vehicles available for snow clearance.

It has increased staff available for snow clearance from 117 to 468 per shift and introduced a new "reservist" role, with up to 950 non-operational staff deployed to terminals to help passengers.

BAA has also agreed with airlines, air traffic control company Nats and ACL - the firm responsible for allocating take-off and landing slots - a new process for managing cancellations so that passengers receive faster, more accurate information.