Originally Posted by
Antonio8069
Two excellent reasons. I can add one more...............gate space is at a premium.
For those who haven't seen it, YYZ has a dedicated de-icing area where de-icing fluid gets recycled.
I believe it's really an issue of recycling.
In the old days, for airports that had to deice often, it was done at the gate. It's pretty much similar to the antifreeze we put in our cars.
By the 1980's it was clear (for the most part) that under certain conditions of wet, heavy snow, deicing had to be done within a certain time before TO.
In the last 15 years, recycling the deicing fluid has taken priority in some locations.
This more recent recycling, coupled with the fact that all planes are deiced in any kind of frozen precipitation (whether needed or not) for the last 30 years, means increased delays.