volcanic eruption in Iceland on Thursday ,volcanic eruption in Iceland on Thursday

volcanic eruption in Iceland on Thursday spread out across Europe and resulted in travel chaos on a scale not seen since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the US.Thousands of passengers were stranded at Mumbai’s Sahar international airport with their eyes glued totelevision screens for updates. Many were clueless about the reason behind the cancellations and were seen inquiring at other airline counters for flight options. Some passengers were provided accommodation by airlines, others asked to fend for themselves.

A hassled Ruud De Boer, 56, was furious. “I was told that my flight was cancelled after waiting for more than two hours on Thursday. The airlines did not bother to explain the reasons for the cancellation or tell us about the volcanic eruption,” lamented Ruud.

Ruud, managing director of a private firm in Netherlands, was then scheduled to fly by Delta Air Lines flight DL-239 Mumbai-Amsterdam at 8pm on Friday. But he was seen struggling to hire a prepaid taxi outside the terminal late in the evening.

“I got to know that the flight was cancelled when I reached the airport at 5pm. I don’t like the manner in which the airline has handled the issue. They gave us hotel accommodation till Friday and said we would have to stay back at our own expense,” said Ruud. He has now booked tickets for a Swiss Air flight, which plans to take a different route.

Air India passengers Bruce Gery, 25, and Rosie Hanley, 25, however, are glad that the airline provided accommodation. The two were on a two-week holiday in India and were set to return to the UK on Friday. “We left Goa at 5am by train to catch our afternoon flight to London from Mumbai.” said Rosie.

Though the AI0131 flight was cancelled, Bruce said, “We were lucky that the airline gave us hotel accommodation. We want nothing more.”There were chaotic scenes at international airports too. Airports in much of Britain, France and Germany remained closed and flights were set to be grounded in Hungary and parts of Romania as well. Airlines and travel operators were losing hundreds of millions of dollars over the grounded flights due to the ash from the eruption of volcano Eyjafjoll in Iceland. The volcanic ash poses a threat to safety because it can get sucked into jet engines and cause them to cut out. The World Health Organisation in Geneva said that the ash could also have potential health impacts if it settles.

Dutch Airlines had Start flying the aircraft

Amsterdam  One by one airline in Europe began to be done, following the cessation of bursts of volcanic ash from the mountain in Iceland, which last week led to the European aviation paralyzed. Three flights started from Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam on Monday (19/4/2010) evening for Shanghai, Dubai and New York by airline KLM.”Three flights scheduled to leave tonight”, said a spokesman for the airline KLM, Saskia Kranendonk as reported by AFP on Tuesday (20/4/2010). The plane left the airport around 8:30 pm local time or 18:30 GMT.According to Saskia, is the type of aircraft flown by Boeing 747 each carrying 275 passengers, and the Airbus 330 can carry 243 passengers.

Previously, airlines in the Netherlands closed on Thursday, April 15, 2010 because of volcanic ash clouds from Iceland disrupt the flight path the country windmills.Previous Dutch Minister of Transport has also announced that the plane will be landing at Schiphol, Amsterdam on Tuesday (20/4/2010) morning.KLM airlines reported losses due to flight delays are between 5-10 million Euros (U.S. $ 6,7-13,4).

17,000 flights were expected to be canceled on Friday due to the dangers posed for a second day by volcanic ash from Iceland

A huge ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano spread out across Europe on Friday causing air travel chaos on a scale not seen since the September 11 attacks.About 17,000 flights were expected to be canceled on Friday due to the dangers posed for a second day by volcanic ash from Iceland, aviation officials said. Airports in Britain, France, Germany, and across Europe were closed until at least Saturday.”I would think Europe was probably experiencing its greatest disruption to air travel since 9/11,” said a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, Britain’s aviation regulator.”In terms of closure of airspace, this is worse than after 9/11. The disruption is probably larger than anything we’ve probably seen.”

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York, U.S. airspace was closed for three days and European airlines were forced to halt all transatlantic services.

Vulcanologists say the ash could cause problems to air traffic for up to 6 months if the eruption continues, but even if it is short-lived the financial impact on airlines could be significant.The fallout hit airlines’ shares on Friday with Lufthansa, British Airways, Air Berlin, Air France-KLM, Iberia and Ryanair down between 0.8 and 2.2 percent.The International Air Transport Association said only days ago that airlines were just coming out of recession.

“LIMITED COMMERCIAL SIGNIFICANCE”

The flight cancellations would cost carriers such as British Airways and Lufthansa about 10 million pounds ($16.04 million) a day, transport analyst Douglas McNeill said.

“To lose that sum of money isn’t a very pleasant experience but it’s of limited commercial significance as well,” he told BBC TV. “A couple of days like this won’t matter too much. If it goes on for weeks, that’s a different story.”The volcano began erupting on Wednesday for the second time in a month from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, hurling a plume of ash 6 to 11 km (4 to 7 miles) into the atmosphere.Officials said it was still spewing magma and although the eruption could abate in the coming days, ash would continue drifting into the skies of Europe.

Volcanic ash contains tiny particles of glass and pulverized rock that can damage engines and airframes.

In 1982 a British Airways jumbo jet lost power in all its engines when it flew into an ash cloud over Indonesia, gliding toward 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.

Of the 28,000 flights that usually travel through European airspace on an average day, European aviation control agency Eurocontrol said it expected only 11,000 to operate on Friday while only about a third of transatlantic flights were arriving.The British Meteorological Office showed the cloud drifting south and west over Europe. Eurocontrol warned problems would continue for at least another 24 hours and an aviation expert at the World Meteorological Organization said it was impossible to say when flights would resume.”We can only predict the time that flights will resume after the eruption has stopped, but for as long as the eruption is still going on and still leading to a significant eruption, we cannot say,” said Scylla Sillayo, a senior official in the WMO’s aeronautical meteorology unit.

AIRSPACE CLOSED

Britain’s air traffic control body said all English airspace would be closed until 8 p.m. EDT on Friday although certain flights from Northern Ireland and Scottish airports were being allowed to take off until 1800 GMT.”When the experts give us the all-clear we’ll get the operation back up and running,” Paul Haskins, head of safety at National Air Traffic Service, told BBC radio.

There were no flights from London’s Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, which handles some 180,000 passengers a day, while officials at Germany’s Frankfurt airport, Europe’s second busiest, said flights would be suspended from 2 a.m. EDT.Around 2,000 people slept overnight at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, a spokeswoman said, adding they did not expect airspace in the Netherlands to reopen soon.

Eurocontrol said airspace was closed over Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, the north of the Czech Republic, northern France including all Paris airports, and at airports in northern Germany, Austria and parts of Poland.

Polish officials said if the disruption continued, it might force a delay in Sunday’s funeral for President Lech Kaczynski and his wife who were killed in a plane crash last Saturday.Airlines across Asia and the Middle East have also canceled or delayed flights to most European destinations.

However, as the ash plume drifted south over Europe, Irish officials said most of the airspace over Ireland had reopened.The air problems have proved a boon for rail companies. All 58 Eurostar trains between Britain and Europe were operating full, carrying some 46,500 passengers, and a spokeswoman said they would consider adding services if problems persisted.(Reuters)