It’s so cold in Europe that KLM has had to cancel more than 2,300 flights for one simple reason: antifreeze

This 2026 has started off cold. In the Spanish state, the Temporary Francis It has made us spend the Three Kings’ night in snow, rain and cold and in the rest of Europe things have not been better. The mass of arctic air has spread across the continent and has been joined by the storm Gorettiwhich has caused the temperature in the Sierra Nevada to plummet to -17 degrees, part of France is on orange alert with power outages and mobility problems and in several countries in central Europe, heavy snowfall and the storm have caused chaos in transport, with flights and trains cancelled.

One of the airlines affected is the Dutch KLM, which has seen cHow their planes are freezing at the airport from Amsterdam. Literally, because there is not enough antifreeze fluid to prevent it while the supplier that supplies that additive has run out of stock. Because just like cars that sleep on the street in the middle of winter, planes also freeze. Only with a vehicle it is enough to scratch the windows a little, start the engine with the heating on and in less than five minutes, it will be running.

Too many days too cold

Taking off with a frozen plane is not an option: ice affects the aerodynamic conditions of the aircraft, making takeoff and landing maneuvers especially dangerous. Furthermore, solving it is not so simple or immediate: there is a strict protocol which, although it may vary with each airline, is intended to ensure that the fuselage is free of contamination and there is no degradation of the aerodynamic or mechanical conditions.

Within that protocol There is deicing on the ground: the plane must be sprayed with deicing liquid to remove ice or snow. Anti-icing is then used, another ice that prevents the plane from freezing again before takeoff and the ice or snow from falling off at that time. This operation is carried out every day in hundreds of airports around the world on thousands of planes. The problem is when for too many days it is too coldwhich results in having to use more defrosting fluid than usual.

If there is no stock, that polar cold wave becomes dramatic in terms of cancellations. This is what has happened to KLM, which on January 2 announced that its operations at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport were going to suffer alterations. Almost a week later, they remained the same. Without going any further, Simple Flying with Flight Radar data echoes of the cancellation of 2,374 flights until January 7.

To keep aircraft operational in this harsh winter, the Dutch airline is using 25 de-icing trucks continuously in Amsterdam, consuming approximately 85,000 liters per day of freezing point depressant fluids. Faced with the shortage, Reuters explains that KLM has already sent employees to its main supplier in Germany in search of more antifreeze stocks.

KLM has warned that “Due to a combination of extreme weather conditions and delays in supply by the supplier, stocks are running out. This problem is currently spreading throughout Europe“. On January 8, logistics gave KLM a break in the form of the first supply of antifreeze of those more than 100,000 liters that are on their way to Schiphol.

If this has happened in Amsterdam, how can it not happen in other cities further north like Helsinki? Well, paradoxically, it happens less: they are better prepared when it comes to considering needs and available stock.

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Cover | David Syphers