I've heard the remark before that we wait too long before splitting up the ground, probably also got to do with controller's pride: "I still have the situation under control, it's not necesarry to split". As for the opposite remark - splitting when it's considered not to be necessary - there are some colleagues who reach their limits faster than others. Also the way we split (everything south of pier B is ground S, north is ground N) doesn't allow for the traffic to be split evenly, so almost always there's less traffic on the ground S than on ground N. So if you're then on the ground S frequency it looks like there's nothing happening, but ground N would be quite congested.Concerning 25L for t/o: atco is right... it is really a nightmare but it does work... but to be very honest, there are more nightmare situations at brussels... f.e. why they always seem to split up the ground sector when it's calm?????? and vice versa....(no kidding, experienced this more than 5 times over the last 3 months)
de icing is simply something .... well... no words for it... couldn't be worse... Even at milano MXP they're better at this... (and they are ITALIANS.....)
As for de-icing (of a/c) I always get the feeling the handlers don't have a plan, and just make it up as it goes along. I assume that they are just understaffed at those moments (not easy to predict the intensity of winter weather, and there's a big difference between 1 mm of snow and 2 cm...)