B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 483; Flight Crew Type 5000
Training / Qualification
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
General Maintenance Action
Company Policy; Human Factors; Manuals; Procedure
We taxied over to the deice pad in DEN to remove snow and ice accumulation. During the deicing process; I notice the deice crew did not spray the winglet. I asked on the radio to make sure our crew would deice and anti-ice the winglets (both upper and lower). A different voice than that of our deice crew stated over the radio that winglets no longer had to be deiced. I asked her; 'Since when?' She stated over a year. Our deice cards on the flight deck have a publication date of [date]. That is two and a half weeks ago. The cards state that the winglet is a critical surface; which means it has to be deiced and anti-iced. We asked the crew to deice and anti-ice the winglets anyway since it was the conservative thing to do. During our flight to ZZZ; we were able to confirm in our manuals; the Operations Manager; and the [other Company document]; that winglets are indeed critical surfaces and should be deiced or anti-iced. Upon landing in ZZZ; I contacted the Chief Pilot on Call. He put me on hold to talk to his people and told me that we were correct. He stated that the DEN station would be contacted to make sure all deice crews were aware of the requirement to deice or anti-ice the winglets.
B737 flight crew reported that the de-icing crew did not de-ice the winglets; and believed that it was no longer necessary to do so.