Brussels, 24/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission said on Tuesday 24 May that, at this point, it did not expect widespread closure of airspace resulting from the ash belching from the Grimsvötn volcano on Iceland. “Although we are partly dependent on the weather and the pattern of ash dispersion, we do not at this stage anticipate the widespread airspace closures and the prolonged disruption we saw last year”, Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas told press. Even though the volcanic ash differs from the ash spewed out in April of last year by the Eyjafjöll volcano, it “still remains a real safety risk to aviation” and “the final decision to open or close airspace still remains with national authorities”, he said, adding that, “one year on, lessons have been learnt”. “Europe is now equipped to respond with graduated response rather than a one size fits all approach”, he stated and, following changes to European rules further to last year's crisis, airlines are free to decide how they will respond. The commissioner said, however, that following contacts with the Hungarian Presidency, he stands ready to call a transport ministerial meeting should there be a need to further coordinate national efforts. For the moment, he suggested, the European coordination cell that has been put in place in Brussels (see EUROPE 10384) was sufficient. Iceland's President Ólafur Regnar Grímsson held much the same discourse when speaking on CNN. “It's a different eruption and Europe is better prepared to deal with it.” Of disruption to air traffic, he said that things would not be “anywhere like it was last year”, though he said that this eruption, “the biggest Iceland has known for 140 years”, must not be under-estimated.
Some 500 of the 29,000 scheduled flights in Europe were cancelled on Tuesday because of the ash cloud, Eurocontrol, the European civil aviation safety organisation, announced early on Tuesday evening. Reports speak of 252 cancelled flights, mainly domestic flights in Scotland and Ireland; airlines Ryanair, KLM, AerLingus and EasyJet decided to suspend operations for security reasons. “The ash cloud reached Scotland and the north of Ireland and airlines decided not to fly in areas where there is high ash density” (i.e. 4mg/m3, according to Kallas), explained Brian Flynn, the head of operations of the European air safety organisation on the organisation's Twitter site. Other UK airports, including Heathrow, were operating normally, the UK Civil Aviation Authority having authorised airlines to fly in zones of medium ash density. According to forecasts from the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) in London, issued by Eurocontrol, the cloud may reach the south-west of Sweden, the south of Norway and Denmark by the end of Tuesday and this could have a slight effect on air traffic. The organisation did not repeat the forecast from the UK Meteorological Office that the cloud would be over the whole of the UK by Wednesday. The Dutch air control department (LVLN) announced on Tuesday that it expected the ash to reach the “extreme north-west” of Dutch airspace in the course of the day or by the evening. The authorities at Amsterdam-Schipol Airport did not anticipate any major disruption to traffic as a result of the cloud, however. Nevertheless, the spread of the cloud has meant travel arrangements have had to be amended. After US President Barack Obama shortened his trip to Ireland by two hours, on Tuesday Latvian Prime Minister Vladis Dembrovskis cancelled his trip to London, which was planned for Wednesday, the international press has reported. Barcelona FC has brought forward its departure to the UK, where it is due to play in the final of the Champions' League, by two days.
Some airlines, including Ryanair, also carried out test flights in zones where the ash cloud was most dense. The company is quoted by AFP as saying that one test flight found that there was no ash at all, a finding which backs up the company's view that there is no threat to aircraft. This opinion is not shared by UK civil aviation authorities. The ash belching from Grimsvötn is reported to be heavier and to be less mobile than the ash thrown up by the Eyjafjöll volcano.
Three zones - blue, grey and red - have been put in place to avoid a standstill in Europe's skies similar to the one following the Eyjafjöll eruption in Iceland in April 2010. Previously, safety measures required countries' airspace to be closed as soon as it was affected by the ash cloud. (A.By./transl.rt)