Without doubt the toughest 13 hours I've done at Gatwick.
It snowed all day - sometimes blizzardy, sometimes not so bad. My little legs were blue with cold within 1/2 hour and they stayed that way for the next 12 1/2 hours. For reasons I haven't yet fathomed, the bloke who does the headsets (me) also drives the open-topped loading belt from job to job. Some of these belts do about 30mph so driving them in a blizzard gives you the pleasure of having your retinas battered by the snow and ice.
The first 3 jobs we simply loaded the planes and then had to leave them sitting on stand as there was over an hour wait for de-icing.
I was then sent out to remote stand where the de-icing was taking place. As the planes pulled up - I, as headsets man - had to chock it, put the steering bypass pin in and connect the headset, then chat to the captain to see what he wanted de-iced, pass this on to the de-icing team, then standby whilst they did this (about 10 minutes) then talk to the captain again to give him clearance to restart engines, remove pin + chocks and send him on his way. I completely lost all feeling in my hands for the 2 1/2 hours I was doing it.
Then back to loading and leaving them again...
The snow came with a vengeance at about 6pm so by the time I left at 7pm the M23 was total chaos - crawling homeward at about 20mph - barely able to make out the lanes or cars in front.
Horrible. Gonna have a couple of beers and go to bed
