Ash From Iceland Volcano Disrupts Sunday Air Travel

MarketWatch ^ | 5-9-2010

[blam]

Ash From Iceland Volcano Disrupts Sunday Air Travel

May 9, 2010, 5:54 a.m. EDT

TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- Fresh plumes of ash from the Iceland volcano again are disrupting Sunday air travel in Europe, media reports say.

AFP reported that airspace over France, Italy and Portugal was closed and dozens of flights were cancelled on Sunday.

Ash Cloud Closes Spanish Airports
Airports in Spain, Portugal and France closed, or expected to close, after an Icelandic volcano's ash cloud blew south. Trans-Atlantic flights were forced to reroute. Video courtesy of Reuters.

Ryanair said in a statement on Sunday that it expects airspace over the Italian cities of Bologna, Milan Bergamo, Pisa, and Turin as well as Porto, Portugal, to be closed or restricted on Sunday.

Spain reopened several airports in the north of the country, including Barcelona, on Sunday, Reuters reported. A few remaining airport closures in Spain could be lifted by midday, reports said. On Saturday, Spain closed 19 airports because of the ash cloud.

On the transatlantic routes, the Associated Press reported that some 600 planes make the trip every day. And it quoted Eurocontrol, the European air-traffic agency, as saying that of the transatlantic flights on Saturday, about 40% were rerouted south of the ash cloud and the rest skirted north of Iceland.

Last month, Europe's aerospace was closed for several days and thousands of flights worldwide were canceled when the Icelandic volcano erupted.

[snip]

(click to the site to see a video)

[sionnsar]

Sure glad I’m not going back for months yet.

[sionnsar]

Interesting. You can see the effects here

[blam]

The Eyjafjallajökull Volcanic Ash Is Back With A Vengeance, Will It Ruin Cannes?

[AlexW]

I am not a conspiracy kook, but I am becoming one.

If this volcano had done this ten years ago, would air traffic
all over Europe been shut down?
Inquiring minds want to know.

[bert]

I would say yes.

The effects of volcanic ash on aircraft engines is quite well known. It chews them up. Commercial air traffic is not war and there is no need to press the atttack and continue the battle.

There is no need for the airlines to damage their aircraft at costs that can’t be recoverable to allow someone to attend a meeting or funeral. There are valid reasons not to put the planes in service beyond catastrophic falling from the sky.

[nhoward14]

I am sure it would. Would you like to fly on a plane when there is a reasonable chance that volcanic ash will jam the engines causing the plane to crash?

[Jack Hydrazine]

Katla is waking up!
http://www.iceagenow.com/Yes_an_earthquake_at_Katla.htm

http://www.iceagenow.com/Is_Katla_beginning_to_act_up.htm

Katla Kan’t Wait!
Welcome Back Katla!

[AlexW]

“I am sure it would. Would you like to fly on a plane when there is a reasonable chance that volcanic ash will jam the engines causing the plane to crash?”

No, I would not, but KLM, a highly respected airline that I have flown many times, flew panes through the last ash cloud and said there was nothing to it.

Can you cite for me other times when a distant volcano eruption shut down international travel???

[bboop]

The last ash closure had to do with the EU committee which used computer models to ‘determine’ where the ash cloud would be, and then acted on them. They did NO real science, gathered NO real data, did NO test flights into the area, and provided for NO alternative scenarios. When the Common Sense folks finally got hold of them and demanded that they categorize airspace into dangerous and ok, and that is when flights started up again.

I do not think you will again see all of Europe restricted, due to the hoopla re this committee’s over-reactions.

[Tzfat]

If this volcano had done this ten years ago, would air traffic all over Europe been shut down?

No. Most of us in the airline industry know this is being fed by the same Euro-Pseudo Science as man-made-global warming. If the same whacky standards had been used after Mt. St. Helens, half of US airspace would have been closed for months.

[Sigurdrifta]

The cases where this happened earlier involved 747’s flying over Indonesia (and a case over Alaska). In one Indonesian incident, all four 747 engines shut down at around 37,000 feet altitude I believe, and the plane sank powerless to below 10,000 feet before the crew managed to even start to get one of the engines restarted.

A point that should be remembered is that most of the planes flying the Atlantic route today are TWO-engined, and the great-circle routes take them up into the North Atlantic or farther north.

My wife was trying to get to Amsterdam yesterday and her flight was cancelled; she is trying again today. I for one am willing to grant them the benefit of the doubt. As someone who has spent a lot of time out on that part of the ocean, I can say with some certainty that there are not a lot of emergency airstrips out there.

[sionnsar]

Katla is waking up!

Oh joy. I have a few European colleagues who will at least be late to this week's meetings thank to the ash.

I'm not due back over there for another 4 months; hopefully things will have settled down by then.

[sionnsar]

As someone who has spent a lot of time out on that part of the ocean, I can say with some certainty that there are not a lot of emergency airstrips out there.

Been there often and concur.