Battle to clear backlog as Europe reopens for flights

Airports across Europe began reopening Wednesday, six days after ash from an Icelandic volcano forced the shutdown of airspace and stranded thousands of passengers around the world.


The airspace over most of the United Kingdom, Norway, Belgium, Ireland and Germany was open again, and Danish, Swedish and Finnish airspace was expected to reopen fully later in the day, air traffic authorities said.

French authorities said all long-haul flights were leaving from Paris airports, along with 60 percent of short-haul flights.

A British Airways flight from Vancouver was the first to land at Heathrow Airport late Tuesday, and a total of 25 mostly long-haul flights had landed by the morning, the airport said. There were a handful of takeoffs Wednesday morning, but the airport warned that not all flights would operate right away.

Manchester Airport said flights were both taking off and landing Wednesday. That raised hope for a team of British cheerleaders who were trying to fly Wednesday from Manchester to Florida for the World Cheerleading Championship this week, though team member Georgina Evett said she wasn't holding her breath just yet.

"I think when we land down in America, then we'll know we're there. But at the minute, we're a bit cautious," Evett told.

Passengers arriving on the Vancouver flight to Heathrow late Tuesday said they circled over Ireland for a couple of hours before getting approval to land in London, which prompted a big cheer in the cabin.

"It was pretty harrowing," said one woman who was aboard the flight. She told she had a "dizzy, kind of sickly feeling" in her stomach as they circled.

The crisis began after the volcano beneath the Eyjafjallajokull glacier erupted Wednesday and sent a cloud of ash into the atmosphere. By the next day that cloud had reached Europe, where authorities quickly shut the airspace over safety fears.

Volcanic ash can have dangerous consequences for flights by shutting down engines and electrical systems and damaging a plane's windscreen.

By Tuesday, however, airlines had started to complain that the measures were too restrictive. Ash levels in most parts of Europe, they said, were low enough to allow the safe operation of flights.

On Wednesday, British aviation regulator CAA issued revised its guidance on flying through volcano ash clouds. Previous guidelines recommended a total ban on flights through ash, but the new rules allow airlines to conduct their own risk assessments and require them to report any ash damage to the authorities.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated Wednesday that the Icelandic volcano crisis cost airlines more than $1.7 billion in lost revenue through Tuesday. Between Saturday and Monday, when disruptions were greatest, IATA said lost revenues reached $400 million each day.

"At the worst, the crisis impacted 29 percent of global aviation and affected 1.2 million passengers a day," said IATA Director-General and Chief Executive Giovanni Bisignani. "The scale of the crisis eclipsed 9/11 when U.S. airspace was closed for three days."

Scientists in Iceland said Wednesday the volcano has decreased its ash output by 80 percent compared to the first day of eruption, April 14. Armann Hoskulsson, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland, told a briefing that the volcano's output is now "insignificant," though it will continue to be active for a while.

That reduction in volcanic activity appeared to be the main reason that flights resumed operating in Europe on Wednesday, along with European countries relaxing their restrictions on flight, according to a spokeswoman for Eurocontrol, the intergovernmental body that manages European air travel.

In Britain, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) issued revised guidance on flying through volcano ash clouds, allowing airlines to conduct their own risk assessments and requiring them to report any ash damage to the authorities.

The 27 countries of the European Union also agreed with Eurocontrol to split the airspace into zones based on their ash content and to allow flights in the unaffected areas, said Spanish Minister of Public Works Jose Blanco.

"Airspace was being closed based on theoretical models, not on facts," said Bisignani, of IATA. "Test flights by our members showed that the models were wrong."

He said the EU's decision to categorize airspace based on risk was a "step in the right direction," but that Europe still needs uniform rules on air travel to avoid the chaos of the past week.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper in London ran a a banner headline asking, "Why was ban ever imposed?" British Airways Chief Executive Willie Walsh, who had pushed for airlines to be allowed to fly, told Sky News that lessons could be learned about how the situation was handled, and that authorities should sit down and examine "what could have been done better."

However, NATS, the air traffic authority in Britain, said it was confident it had made the right decision in restricting flights.

"The primary concern for all the people involved -- the regulator, the government, and NATS -- has been to ensure flight safety," NATS Senior Manager Alex Bristol told. "Until such time as we had evidence to give us different assurances, then the regulations which existed, and which we were using eight days ago ... then we had to restrict the airspace, and we did the right things."

Ash deepens Europe travel chaos

Virtually all of Europe's major airports remain closed as a huge plume of volcanic ash drifts south and east across the continent from Iceland.

Millions of air travelers are stranded as thousands of flights are being canceled for a third day.
The disruption from the spread of ash would continue into Sunday, European aviation agency Eurocontrol said.

Airlines are losing some £130m ($200m) a day in an unprecedented shutdown of commercial air travel.

"Forecasts suggest that the cloud of volcanic ash will persist and that the impact will continue for at least the next 24 hours," a statement from Eurocontrol said at around 0830 GMT.

The agency, which co-ordinates air traffic control in 38 nations, said it expected 16,000 flights to be canceled across Europe on Saturday, from a total of 22,000 on a normal Saturday.

Many countries and airlines have grounded fleets as the ash - a mixture of glass, sand and rock particles, drifting from 5,000ft (1,500m) - can seriously damage aircraft engines.


Some 18,000 of the 28,000 daily flights in the affected zone were canceled on Friday, twice as many as the day before.

The UK and Ireland have re-imposed flight bans.
"Current forecasts show that the situation is worsening throughout Saturday," said the UK's National Air Traffic Service (Nats).

The UK extended its ban on commercial flights until at least 0700 local time (0600 GMT) on Sunday.
The disruption has now affected millions of travellers since Wednesday when the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano began erupting for the second time in a month.


Scientists in Iceland said they hoped to fly above the volcano to assess how much ice has melted, now that winds have cleared visibility.

A plume of ash 8.5km (5.3 miles) high was visible on Saturday.
A "significant quantity" of ash was contained in the column, said Dr David Rothery, of the UK Open University's earth sciences department, based on live images from webcams in Iceland.

"The column is pulsing in height, as fresh explosions occur in the active crater. One can see curtains of ash fallout below the plume from time to time," he said.

According to Mr Rothery, the fine ash at the top of the column is likely to be drawn into the high altitude winds, adding to the ash cloud heading southwards across the continent.


Europe's busiest airports, including Heathrow in London, Frankfurt and Charles de Gaulle in Paris, have been affected by the closures.

All 16 international airports in Germany were closed on Saturday and German airline Lufthansa canceled all its flights until at least 2000 local time (1800 GMT), a spokesman for the company said.

"There has never been anything like this," he said, adding that there were no Lufthansa planes in the air anywhere in the world.


Unable to catch flights, commuters across northern Europe have sought other means of transport, packing out trains, buses and ferries.


The Eurostar cross-channel rail service said it had never seen so many passengers on one day and the trains were fully booked until Monday.

The large no-fly zone also means that some world leaders might have difficulty attending the funeral of the Polish president on Sunday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had to touch down in Portugal for an unscheduled overnight stay on her way back from the US, while the disruption also forced the cancellation of the inaugural Iraqi Airways flight from Baghdad to London.

US pop star Whitney Houston was forced to take a car ferry from Britain to Ireland for a concert after her flight was cancelled.

The travel chaos has been felt as far away as North America and Asia, with dozens of Europe-bound flights being cancelled.

British health officials said any effects of the ash on people with existing respiratory conditions were "likely to be short term".


The last eruption of the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano was on 20 March, when a 0.5km-long fissure opened up on the eastern side of the glacier at the Fimmvoerduhals Pass. The eruption prior to that started in 1821 - and continued intermittently for more than a year.

Iceland lies on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the highly volatile boundary between the Eurasian and North American continental plates.

At least 45 dead in western Europe storms

 At least 45 people have been killed in storms that have lashed parts of Spain, Portugal and France, officials say.

Forty people have died in France and three in Spain, one in Germany as well as a 10-year-old boy in Portugal.

Winds of up to 140km/h (87mph) caused chaos as they moved from Portugal up through the Bay of Biscay.
The storm system is moving north-eastwards and is expected to reach Denmark by the evening, French meteorological authorities said.

At least 23 of those deaths came in France, local media reported, where the extra-tropical cyclone whipped the country's coastal regions and moved inland, bringing sometimes heavy flooding with it.

"At 3 o'clock in the morning, we heard the toilets backing up. We got up to look and then we saw 80 cm (about 31 inches) of water in the garage," a resident of Aiguillon-Sur-Mer, in the department of Vendee.

"It was rushing in, it broke down the walls around the garden and the gate."
At least one million households were without power Sunday afternoon, Bernard Lassus of Electricite de France told BFM.

The high winds -- at times spiking to 200 km/h (124 mph) -- reached inland as far as Paris, where as many as 100 flights were canceled at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle International Airport, BFM reported.

In Spain, three people were killed in the storm, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said in a news conference Sunday. Two children died in a car accident and another person was killed in northwestern Spain, the minister said in a news conference.

At least 17 provinces were on high alert due to the strong winds, and some flights and train services were canceled.

A 10-year-old child was killed by a falling tree in the high winds in Portugal, Patricia Gaspar, National Operations Assistant with the Portuguese National Authority for Civil Protection.

There are also some power outages in the country, Gaspar said. Some residents have reported roofs blown off and smaller houses collapsing, she added.

One man was killed in southwestern Germany when a tree fell on his car, local police said. The man's wife was seriously injured.

The storm also reached England, where one woman was reported dead when the vehicle she was driving became submerged and washed down a swollen creek in the northeastern part of the country.

The body of the 53-year-old woman was recovered downstream, North Yorkshire Police said in a recorded phone message to the media.