WEST LEBANON — On Sunday, Kelly Carbino arrived at Lebanon Municipal Airport to find the cars she was getting ready to rent out to customers coated in an inch of ice.
And demand was high. In addition to the 15 reservations already made, five other customers were looking for alternative modes of transportation after a Christmas Day ice storm prompted the airport to ground all incoming and outgoing flights, a stoppage that continued until early Tuesday afternoon.
“I haven’t seen it shut down this long,” said Carbino, the lead agent at Avis Car Rental. “This ice was pretty crazy.”
By the time the airport reopened around 2 p.m. Tuesday, about 30 Cape Air flights — the only commercial airliner that operates at the airport — had been canceled, said airport manager Carl Gross.
Crews had been out “sweeping and scraping” the airport’s runways. Sand was put down Sunday in hopes that it would help.
“It did not,” Gross said. “We cannot use salt on the airfields because of the corrosive effect on the airplanes.”
Earlier Tuesday, airport officials were awaiting the delivery of a “de-icing chemical” containing sodium formate to quicken the clean-up. It ended up not being as necessary as expected.
“What worked for us was the sun and the heat,” Gross said, adding that a small amount of sodium formate was used.
If the de-icer had arrived on time, there might have been a different outcome. Originally, it was supposed to be delivered Dec. 20 in anticipation of the storm, but it was delayed due to supply chain difficulties.
“What we ran into was a supply chain issue where the manufacturer could not get their totes to ship it,” Gross said. “The day after it was due, they called and said they could ship one tote of the chemical.”
Between a dozen and two dozen private planes also were impacted by the four-day closure, said Greg Soho, co-owner and CFO of Granite Air Center LLC, which also operates at the airport in West Lebanon. Instead, people had to fly to Burlington or Manchester.
“We’ve had ice storms that have closed the airport down, but typically what has happened is on the back end of it you’ll get some melting action,” said Soho, who has worked at the airport since 1999. “This is the first time I’ve seen it where we’ve had, after the storm, the temperatures remaining below freezing and below sun.”
On Monday Carbino helped three more customers whose Cape Air flights were delayed. Others opted to take the Dartmouth Coach bus to Logan International Airport in Boston. More people were also returning cars to Avis that they had picked up in Boston due to Cape Air flights being canceled. The days after the holidays are always busy for Avis and the airport. The storm made it more so.
“This was the worst storm,” Carbino said she witnessed in 25 years working at the airport. “There’s been some doozies, but the ice really slowed me down.”
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
