Volcano Ash Update: Flights resume across Europe; Pressure to clear backlog
After six days of shutdown of the airspace over major parts of Europe, life is limping back to normalcy in the airspace with airports beginning to reopen on Wednesday.
UK, Norway, Belgium, Ireland and Germany’s airspace was reopened while Denmark, Sweden and Finland are scheduled to reopen in the later part of the day.
Paris airport saw 100% departure of long haul flights while 60% of the short haul flights were also operational. Late Tuesday saw the first landing of a British Airways flight from Vancouver while there were a few take offs on Wednesday morning. However, a warning was issued by the airport authorities that all flights might not be operational immediately.
A Manchester airport report said that normal take offs and touch downs were happening on wenesday. This news was a ray of hope for a group of cheerleaders who were traveling from Manchester to Florida on Wednesday for the World Cheerleading Championship which is to be held this week.
People who were in the flight from Vancouver to Heathrow said that they had to go around Ireland for about two hours after which they were given landing permission to land in London.
Air traffic restrictions were invoked after the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier erupted on Wednesday and resulted in a cloud of ash over a greater part of Europe. Volcanic ash can be disruptive to a flight because it has the potential to damage the plane’s windscreen or can even shut down engines and electrical systems.
However, most airlines companies started saying that the ash cover was were low enough not to disrupt normal flight operations and were pressing for resumption of flights.
British aviation regulator CAA released flying advisory in volcanic ash cloud conditions on Wednesday. While the initial rule had implemented complete flying restrictions,a s per the new rule all the airlines companies were to do their own risk assessment beofr resuming operations.
The total loss incurred by the airlines on account of flight suspension due to volcanic ash was $1.7 billion, estimates the IATA while the revenue loss between Saturday and Monday was estimated at $400 million each day.
As per scientists the volcanic output has come down by 80% and that the remaining output was insignificant. On eof the main reasons for the resumption of flights across Europe is due to the reduction in the volcanic eruption.
Civil Aviation Authority, the CAA has issued flying advisory saying that airlines companies need to do their own risk assessment and then resume flight operations. It has also advised airlines to report any ash related damage to the authorities. Eurocontrol has got into an agreement with 27 European countries whereby the airspace would be split into two…..one which has lesser ash content and the other which is the unaffected areas.
Meanwhile Willie Walsh, Chief Executive of British Airways told sky news on the learnings that could be derived out of this experience.. On the other hand, NATS, the air traffic authority in Britain said that it had done the right thing by restricting flights.
