Aviation industry slams continued airspace closures
The aviation industry today condemned European transport officials, claiming there has been “no co-ordination and no leadership” in the crisis that has shut down most European airports for a fifth day.
Eurocontrol, the air traffic agency in Brussels, said less than one third of flights in Europe were taking off today – between 8,000 and 9,000 of the continent’s 28,000 scheduled flights.
Some smaller airports reopened but authorities in Ireland, Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands – home to four of Europe’s five largest airports – said their airspace was still closed. Britain said it was keeping flight restrictions in place until early Tuesday, while Italy briefly lifted restrictions in the north but then quickly closed down again after conditions worsened.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said the airport lockdowns are costing the aviation industry at least $200m a day.
Millions of travellers have been stranded since the volcano under Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull glacier begun erupting on Wednesday for the second time in a month.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has said it has received 200 calls from stranded Irish citizens trying to get home so far today.
A special helpline was set up yesterday and has been fielding calls since 9am this morning.
The Department said it is issuing people with up-to-date travel advice - as well as details of local embassies.
The majority of queries relate to travel plans, but a number are also medical-related where people have run out of prescription medication.
The Department is stressing it is not making travel plans for citizens - just offering advice and information.
Meeting in Paris, the IATA expressed its “dissatisfaction with how governments have managed it, with no risk assessment, no consultation, no co-ordination and no leadership”, and called for greater urgency in reopening Europe’s skies.
Several major airlines safely tested the skies with weekend flights that did not carry passengers. The announcement of successful test flights prompted some airline officials to question whether authorities had overreacted to concerns that the microscopic particles of volcanic ash could cause jet engines to fail.
Transport ministers from Britain, Germany, France and Spain were meeting today via video-conference and will later be joined by all 27 EU transport ministers, said French transport minister Dominique Bussereau.
“We will try to outline corridors, if we can, based on the evolution of the cloud, to allow the reopening of as large a number of flight paths as possible, as quickly as possible and in good security conditions,” Bussereau said.
Eurocontrol said that southern Europe, including Portugal, Spain, parts of Italy and France, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, and parts of northern Europe were currently open for flights.
EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas told reporters in Brussels that “it is clear that this is not sustainable. We cannot just wait until this ash cloud dissipates”.
“Now it is necessary to adopt a European approach” instead of a patchwork of national closures and openings, said Diego Lopez Garrido, state secretary for EU affairs for Spain, which holds the rotating EU presidency.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines said it had flown four planes on Sunday through what it described as a gap in the layer of microscopic dust over Holland and Germany. Air France, Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines also sent up test flights, although most travelled below the altitudes where the ash has been heavily concentrated.
“There is currently no consensus as to what consists an acceptable level of ash in the atmosphere,” said Daniel Hoeltgen, a spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency. “This is what we are concerned about and this is what we want to bring about so that we can start operating aircraft again in Europe.”
IATA chief Giovanni Bisignani said: “It’s embarrassing, and a European mess.
“It took five days to organise a conference call with the ministers of transport and we are losing $200m and 750,000 passengers are stranded all over. Does it make sense?”
“We have to not just use – as the Europeans were doing – a theoretical model, let’s try to use figures and facts. It means sending test planes at certain kinds of altitudes to check the situation with the ashes.”
While the association says “safety is our top priority”, Bisignani said in the statement that its member airlines have run test flights with no problems and “they report missed opportunities to fly safely”.
French environment minister Jean-Louis Borloo said disparate analyses needed to be brought together based on “real tests on real planes with real pilots” so some air “corridors” could be reopened.
“The issue today is not to reopen all European commercial airspace, the issue today is to increase the ability to reopen corridors to allow the general de-congestion of European traffic,” he said.
“The desire of France – without taking risk – is to open corridors as much as possible and as quickly as possible.”
IATA’s Bisignani added that Europe – unlike the United States for example – is “not well-equipped” when it comes to planes that can test the air quality in the skies.
He estimated that once flights in Europe do resume, it would take three to six days for traffic to return to normal.
