Deep snow, thick ice and zero delays: Inside the Arctic Circle airports that never cancel a flight

Yahoo

18-04-2025

Flying into Inari in the far north of Finland felt like landing at the end of the world.
In every direction, trees and snow. Now and then, we got a glimpse of warmly lit cabins, and occasionally sprawling resorts, dotted amongst the trees.
It was snowing, and the temperature hovered around five degrees below zero. As we touched down on the icy runway, I'll admit I felt a flicker of concern about the stopping power of the Finnair Airbus A321 that had brought us up from Helsinki.
But Ivalo Airport was well prepared, and the landing was smooth and uneventful. We rolled gently to the end of the 2,500-metre runway, slowing steadily as the pilots avoided heavy braking in the snowy conditions.
Ivalo Airport is the gateway to Inari, Finland's largest municipality by area, but also the most sparsely populated. Part of Finnish Lapland, it offers a wealth of winter experiences, just without the elves or the man in red.
This is a winter wonderland for the more discerning traveller: fantasy-level snowfall, breathtaking landscapes, and endless possibilities for activity—or inactivity. Husky sledding, snowmobiling, skiing, snowboarding, reindeer herding—Inari has it all, and then some.
If you prefer to relax and simply soak up the scenery, you're in luck. Saunas abound in this frozen land. At the beautiful Star Arctic Hotel, where we stayed, some cabins featured private saunas, while others had full glass ceilings for aurora watching right from your bed.
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Here in Saariselkä, accommodation options are plentiful, but the Star Arctic is super convenient for the ski slopes and for the entrance to the longest toboggan run in the country. Plummeting down Kaunispää hill, it descends 1.8 km deep into the forest, dropping around 180 metres.
However you choose to get out of your resort, as soon as you do, the landscape will take your breath away. Inari is wild, exhilarating, bleak, terrifying and jaw-droppingly beautiful all at once.
Unlike more popular Lapland destinations like Rovaniemi, it has not suffered from overtourism. In fact, it's probably one of the most unspoiled places left in Western Europe.
'That's Russia over there,' my snowshoeing instructor noted, pointing at the endless sea of pine trees stretching as far as the eye could see. 'Of course, you can't see the borders from here,' she chuckled.
Inari has become a rising star for adventure seekers wanting to experience the real Lapland. Last winter, nine international airlines operated seasonal services to Ivalo Airport, including a new route from British Airways - its most northerly destination to date.
Finnish Lapland, in general, is becoming increasingly popular year on year. Across the Finavia-managed airports of Rovaniemi, Kittilä, Ivalo, Kuusamo, and Kemi-Tornio, 1.8 million passengers arrived in 2024, up almost 20 per cent on the year before.
With average temperatures plummeting as low as -18 degrees and around 200 days of snow a year, how can these airports safely handle all these flights?
Back in Helsinki, I caught up with Finavia's Pyry Pennanen, head of airfield maintenance, to find out more about what goes into keeping airports operating in such extreme conditions.
'We basically promise summer-like conditions in our runways year-round,' says Pennanen. 'But in Helsinki, winter is a very real thing.'
Helsinki is a different proposition from Ivalo. Handling an average of 350 departures a day, it's an important international hub, with several flights landing and taking off every hour. With around 100 days of snow a year, keeping the runway clear is essential to maintaining Helsinki's reputation as an airport that runs like clockwork.
'To keep the aircraft on schedule, we have 13 minutes to clear the runway, but we can do it in 11,' Pennanen explains. 'The most we have to do is around once per hour if it's really snowing, but on the worst days, it can be once every 20 minutes.'
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Delivering this speedy clearance is a team of around 15 machines that all head out together to make the 3,500-metre runway safe. The crown jewels of this bizarre ballet of beasts are the Vammas PSB 5500 sweeper blowers, developed in partnership with Helsinki Airport.
These 31-tonne monsters stand 3.7 metres tall and stretch a massive 25 metres long. They can clear a 5.5 metre span of runway in just 11 minutes, thanks to their unique trifecta of snow-clearing features.
Designed to plough, sweep and blow (hence the PSB in the name), the process begins with a spring-loaded cutting edge on its nine metre plough, keeping contact firm on uneven surfaces. Behind that, a dense broom made of stiff metal bristles sweeps up any stubborn ice on the ground. Finally, the powerful jet air blower shoots loose snow and ice away from the runway at speeds of more than 400 km an hour.
Joining the convoy is a terrifying-looking machine, a self-propelled snow blower made by Overaasen in Norway. A towering 4.5 metres tall, this 1,500-horsepower behemoth can smash even the most stubborn ice off surfaces, clearing up to 10,000 tonnes an hour and casting the snow 35 metres away from the runway.
'The most challenging conditions are when we have freezing rain,' says Pennanen. 'When it's minus ten and the freezing rain is still falling, it's very difficult to deal with.'
In these conditions, the expansive de-icer comes into play. Spraying potassium formate on the runway surface will melt the ice in under an hour, and keep the surface ice-free for several hours beyond. The chemical is readily decomposed and contains no nitrogen, making it safe for the environment.
Smaller beasts like wheel loaders, tractors, lorries and chemical sprayers also help keep the runways clear. In all, Finnaiva's fleet in Helsinki spans around 200 vehicles that work from October to May. In the months in between, the team carries out essential maintenance on the vehicles to keep them mission-ready for the coming winter.
In Finnish Lapland, snow usually covers the ground from early November to late May (although it was worryingly late to arrive in some parts last winter). Across the region, you can expect from 25 cm to as much as a metre of snow on the ground throughout the winter.
With over 200 days of snow in a typical year, Finavia's Lapland airports have their work cut out. Yet, as a company, Finavia has never had to close an airport due to inclement weather, and the number of cancelled or delayed flights is minimal.
Up in the Arctic Circle, Ivalo Airport sees more snow than most.
'We operate in winter conditions for seven months,' says Jarmo Pyhäjärvi, Ivalo Airport manager. 'We are the most northerly airport in the European Union, and we operate in Arctic conditions.'
Like Helsinki, Ivalo Airport has a fleet of machinery to keep the runway and taxiways clear. These include plough-sweep-blow units, high power snow blowers, tractors, brush blowers and more.
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Because the airport is so small, its staff headcount is low. In the winter, it doubles from its summer level of 25 employees to around 50. Fifteen of these people will be trained to work on maintenance, keeping the airport clear of ice and snow.
'Many of the staff will have a double role,' says Finavia's communications manager Elina Suominen. 'One minute they might be checking in a bag, the next they're doing security, or driving a snow plough.'
Seeing these big snow-clearing beasts in action was astounding. The sheer power of the vehicles and the incredible volume of snow they move is incredible, with clearing operations performed not at a slow plod, but at speeds of 40 to 50 km an hour.
Across all its airports, Finavia uses sunken sensors to monitor the conditions on the runway. Tiny changes can be tracked, giving the operator early warning of incoming weather, sometimes six to eight hours in advance.
As with Helsinki, it is not so much the snowfall that's a problem, but rather the temperature itself. When the freezing rain hits in Ivalo, the lower number of flight arrivals means their strategy for clearance is slightly different.
'We do what we call precision management maintenance, which means that the runway is cleared just before the flight comes in,' explains Suominen. 'The snow protects the runway from the freezing rain, and we let it work as a shield and only take it off at the last moment. This way we don't need to use any chemicals.'
Pyhäjärvi recalls a winter in 1999 when the temperature dropped to an eye-watering minus 50 degrees. The most recent extreme temperature event, in 2023, saw the mercury drop to minus 35. Even then, the airport cancelled just one solitary flight, maintaining all other operations as normal.
Amazingly, Ivalo Airport does all this with net-zero emissions. In the last 10 years, the airport has cut its emissions by 98 per cent through the use of renewable energy. The remaining two per cent is offset through approved programmes. Its snow-clearing machinery all runs on biofuels.
Companies like Finavia are essential in developing the technologies and equipment required to keep the world's most extreme airports open all year round.
Most recently, Ivalo Airport has worked with a number of Finnish companies to test autonomous snow-clearing operations. Working with Nokian Tyres, snow removal equipment manufacturer Vammas (Fortbrand), energy company Neste and machinery manufacturer Valtra, they developed a new concept for optimising snow removal at remote airports.
The vision is that, when airports like Ivalo are closed for the night, or running on a skeleton crew, and the snow starts to fall, an autonomous tractor will spring to life. Using optimised, predefined waylines, the tractor will clear the runway of snow, making it safe for the next plane to land. If it's running low on fuel, it will refuel itself using low-emission biodiesel.
Pilot projects have been very promising, although the autonomous tractors aren't being used yet. Nevertheless, Finavia is confident of success in the longer term.
Also testing autonomous operations is fellow Arctic Circle operator Swedavia, manager of Sweden's airports. This winter, it has tested eight PSB machines in autonomous mode, and it is keen to roll this out to actual operations.
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'We are still in the testing phase, but this winter we have made major steps forward,' says Ali Sadeghi, chief asset officer of facilities and systems at Swedavia Airports. 'These additions to our snow clearance fleet are a strategic step and will help us make Swedavia's snow clearance more safe, efficient and predictable as well as climate friendly.'
Like Finavia, Swedavia has not had to close an airport because of bad weather for a very long time. 'Stockholm Arlanda Airport has an excellent record of dealing with snow,' adds Sadeghi. 'We have never closed the airport due to snow or bad weather in over 60 years.'
Next door in Norway, Oslo Airport undertook intensive testing of autonomous ploughs for over a year, deploying them in daily operations in 2021. Up to six enormous machines move simultaneously, all with no driver onboard, controlled either from a command vehicle or from the comfort of an office desk.
Powered by cloud-based software known as the Yeti Autonomy Service Platform (YASP), developed by Yeti Move, the vehicles are connected so that they know where to go and what to do. There are high hopes that such advancements could make snow clearance operations even more eco-friendly in the future.
'YASP ultimately cuts fuel consumption and emissions,' John Emil Halden, COO of Yeti Move, tells Business Norway. 'Our solution optimises power use by ensuring operations are consistent at all times. Also, well-planned operations with autonomous vehicles will reduce the driving needed to complete the job, and fewer vehicles are needed overall.'
As a traveller, I remain in awe of these incredible airports and their ability to keep flying regardless of the conditions. And I am thankful, because without airports like Ivalo, it wouldn't be so easy to discover the wonders of the truly unspoilt corners of the world.