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A plume of steam rising 6700 metres from a crater at the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in southern Iceland - Source: Reuters -
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A huge ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano has turned the skies
of northern Europe into a
no-fly zone , stranding hundreds of thousands of
passengers.
The European air safety organisation said the disruption, the
biggest seen in the region, could last another two days and a
leading volcano expert said the ash could present intermittent
problems to air traffic for 6 months if the eruption continued.
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Even if the disruption, which has also affected transatlantic
flights, is short lived, the financial impact on airlines could be
significant, a consultant said.
The International Air Transport Association had said only days ago
airlines were slowly coming out of recession.
The volcano began erupting on Wednesday for the second time in a
month from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier. It hurled a plume of
ash six to 11 kilometres into the atmosphere, and this spread south
east overnight.
Volcanic ash contains tiny particles of glass and pulverised rock
that can damage engines and airframes and an Icelandic
volcanologist said on Thursday the eruption was intensifying.
Britain barred flights in its air space, except in emergencies,
until at least 0600 GMT on Friday (6pm Friday NZT), with a flight
returning soldiers from Afghanistan having to be held in
Cyprus.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was forced to cancel a trip
to Russia's Arctic town of Murmansk on Thursday. "The cloud has
covered the entire region," said Putin's spokesman.
John Strickland, director of air transport consultancy JLS
Consulting, saw possible broader hazards.
"Iceland sits right on one of the key routes between Europe and the
USA and... depending on meteorological conditions it could also
affect flights from Europe to Asia so there are two big
international flows which could be affected by this."
Grounded
A spokesman at Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, said 840 out of
1,250 flights on Friday were affected, disrupting about 180,000
passengers. More than 120,000 other passengers were affected at
Gatwick, Stansted and Glasgow airports.
David A Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association
of America, said its member carriers had halted over 100 flights
between the United States and Britain on Thursday.
It was the first time within living memory that a natural disaster
had caused such a halt, a spokeswoman for Britain's National Air
Traffic Service (NATS) said. Even after the September 11, 2001
attacks, Britain did not close its air space.
Brian Flynn, deputy head of operations at Eurocontrol, an
intergovernmental air safety organisation, said the disruption was
already unprecedented:
French authorities said airports across northern France, including
Paris, would be closed by the end of Thursday.
Brussels, Amsterdam and Geneva airports said they had cancelled a
large number of flights and Eurocontrol spokesman Brian Flynn said
the problem could persist for a further 48 hours.
Frankfurt, Europe's third busiest airport, had not notified any
plan to close, but authorities were reviewing the situation, while
Berlin would close at 2 am on Friday and Bremen, Hamburg and
Hanover would be closed until 8 a.m.
How soon they reopened would depend on the volume of ash.
Finland was closing all airports from midnight on Friday (12pm
Saturday NZT).
"Unpredictable"
The Association of British Insurers said volcanic eruptions were
not always covered by travel insurance for cancellation and delay.
But some airlines issued statements confirming they would refund
fares or change flights.
Airline staff at Stansted airport, north-east of London, told
customers it could be closed until Monday, said stranded passenger
Andy Evans.
"People just don't know what to do," he said. "There are hundreds
of people in the queues at the sales desks."
"There is a big financial impact on the airlines," said Strickland
of JLS consulting. "We are now looking at at least a day's business
wiped out for the airline business ... even if things were
meteorologically fine to fly tomorrow by that time the airlines
will have all their aircraft and crew out of position so they have
no choice but to cancel further flights." In 1982 a British
Airways jumbo jet lost power in all its engines when it flew into
an ash cloud over Indonesia, gliding towards the ground before it
was able to restart its engines.
The incident prompted the aviation industry to rethink the way it
prepared for ash clouds, resulting in international contingency
plans activated on Thursday.
Scientists said the ash did not pose any health threat because it
is at such a high altitude.
Bill McGuire, professor at the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research
Centre, said if the volcano continued erupting for more than 12
months, as it did the last time, periodic disruptions to air
traffic could continue.
"The problem is volcanoes are very unpredictable and in this case
we have only one eruption to go on," he said. "And a lot depends on
the wind. I would expect this shutdown to last a couple of days.
But if the eruption continues - and continues to produce ash - we
could see repeated disruption over six months or so."
