Delta employees attend de-icing boot camp

The temperature says it’s summer outside, but Delta Air Lines is training employees in how to de-ice an airplane — a critical part of flying during the cold winter months.

Every summer, Delta brings about 400 workers to Minneapolis to a three-day summer de-ice “boot camp.” Then they go back to their home bases and training co-workers, 6,000 in all. Instructors say de-icing is the last line of defense when it comes to winter flying. And the hardest part of training newbies? Learning to drive the big trucks and go up in a cherry-picker to spray planes.

Delta is a main service provider at the Grand Forks Airport.

Minneapolis is a logical place for learning about de-icing. Delta de-iced about 30,000 planes around its system last winter, and 13,000 of those were in Minneapolis.