Snowmageddon, Winter Storm Jonas, Blizzard 2016, Storm of the Century–no matter what you call it, it was costly.  The storm brought air travel in the Northeast to a halt, crippling some of the country’s largest and busiest airports. Harrisburg International Airport was no exception.  The airlines cancelled all flights for Saturday, January 23rd, 2016, and a good portion on Sunday, January 24th as well.  In fact, a normal flight schedule didn’t occur for another three days after the storm.  So what does this mean to an airport like HIA?  Here is a look at the cold, hard numbers:

 Official Snow Fall at Harrisburg International Airport:                        30.2”

Number of overtime hours:                                                                      981.10 hours

Amount of Potassium Acetate (chemical used on Runway):              4200 gallons

Amount of Rock Salt used for roadways:                                               22 tons

Amount of Anti-Ski used for runway/taxiway:                                      9 tons

When you put a dollar value to these numbers, this one snow event cost the airport about $250,000.  That’s better than $8,278 per inch of snow.  Not to mention the loss in revenue from landing fees and parking transactions, two major sources of funding for Harrisburg International Airport.

Needless to say if we don’t see another snowflake this year the HIA Winter Warriors, our front-line of snow defense, will be very happy.