FAQ: What do deicing people do during the summer?

When people ask me what I do for a living and I explain that I work in aircraft ground deicing, the question I am most frequently asked is what do I do with all my spare time during summer months.

The assumption from most is that as a deicing guy, my winters are gruelling and my summers are spent sitting by the pool and sipping piña coladas.

Contrary to popular belief, summer is actually the busiest time of the year for many companies in the deicing industry, and this is definitely the case for SureConsult. As a developer and provider of niche deicing operating and training programs and quality management solutions, SureConsult’s business follows a typical PDCA cycle, which stands for PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT. The cycle also just happens to be seasonal in our case, as deicing operations occur during the winter months, and our activities and services are broken into four seasonal quadrants.

At the end of the deicing season during the Spring, SureConsult compiles and reviews audit results and operational feedback from our customers. We partake in industry discussions on changes to standards and regulations and plan developments. Our operating, training, and quality management programs are reviewed in detail and the process for completing annual amendments is initiated. This is also the time of year discussions start with many prospective customers for new projects for the upcoming winter months.

Summer is SureConsult’s busiest time of the year. All of our dozens of operating and training programs are revised based on changes to industry standards and regulations, and new products are developed for customers. We’re in full development phase, and our creative design team works long hours developing new training programs, videos, animations, and compiling courses for upload to our Learning Management System. Deicing training services, which used to start typically in September of each calendar year, now start regularly in July and we have our first sessions planned this year on July 3. Summer is also the busiest time of the year for business development and contracting.

The Fall months are spent doing a lot of deicing training and reviewing and approving contractor and air carrier deicing programs. We assist our customers with stations start-ups and provide general support to ensure that deicing operations across our entire network of customer stations are launched as seamlessly as possible. Planning for our SureAudit Shared Deicing Audit Program is typically initiated in October and physical deicing audits begin in November.

During the Winter months, SureConsult’s experts travel the network extensively viewing operations and conducting deicing audits. We issue audit reports and corrective action plans and work with the various deicing service providers to close findings on behalf of our customer airlines. We review and rectify safety issues, and issue additional guidance as required, and then Spring rolls around again and the PDCA cycle restarts.

So the next time you have a deicing-related question during the summer, please feel free to contact us at your convenience, as chances are that we’ll be behind our desks beavering away and NOT sitting by the pool.