Much has been written lately about the potential cost of not de-icing a business airplane before attempting to fly it, so we posed the question recently in our AINalerts twice-weekly electronic news bulletin, “What about the cost of de-icing? The price seems to vary wildly. What is the most you have paid to have a business jet de-iced? What type of airplane was it, which facility de-iced it, and what were the circumstances?”
We received a large number of responses, including a couple that went something like this: “Why would you even ask such a question? If an airplane needs de-icing, it needs de-icing, period, whatever the cost.” Well, that was actually the foundation of our point. When a supplier (the outfit with the glycol rig) has something in demand and in limited supply (“I want my airplane de-iced now”), all bets are off on what price a good glycol dousing might command on a busy, nasty winter’s day or night, and we were curious to see what some dialog on the subject might reveal. The “right” answer (if brief and to the point) was this one from a corporate aircraft operator in the Northeast: “We de-ice if there is any question. The cost is inconsequential compared with the aggregate annual cost of operation.”
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