Volcanic erruption in Iceland interupts air travel in europe archived

Well now there are NO FLIGHTS WHAT SO EVER...coming into europe.

My husband in in the air coming home from Italy as I type.
I am so glad he made it out at 6:00AM our time this morning!

Lucky him...it's a mess...

My SIL from Paris thinks she is still coming to the US as planned tomorrow...we shall see.

My Sister and BIL are in Paris also, Sunday flight

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8622978.stm

Just off the phone with my boss in the head office in Amsterdam. It is a mess over there, although he noted it's a lovely spring day. He lives near the airport and noted he hasn't seen or heard a plane in over 24 hours. The trains are packed, as people are using them to head south, as airports in southern Europe (Spain, Italy and southern France) are still open. Our senior administrative assistant is going nuts - she has people here that need to go back to NL and people in NL that need to be in the US for meetings and conference next week.

Our family members have just re-booked on US Airways. Instead of arriving (from France) today, the soonest they can get here is Wednesday. They also had to change their US destination from Philadelphia to Newark and they have to go through Charlotte to get here.

IT IS A MESS. I just hope that the volcano doesn't continue to erupt for two weeks (or longer) like it did in the nineteenth century. My brother, the pilot for American Airlines, said the company is easily millions of dollars a day.

kmk

Were they flying direct from France or through England?

I'm debating on if I sould call my sister and have her book some hotel rooms for Sunday night. They are on a canal boat in souther France and have no idea about the air travel.

Direct from France. CDG is completely shut down.
Your sister may need a hotel until Wednesday.

My sister and brother in law (in Austria) are members of a pond club that focuses on raising exotic fish. Its a european wide club and they received a warning to cover the ponds as the sulfuric acid in the ash which is falling is killing fish.

The cloud is amazing...and scary to boot considering that that was a pretty small volcano.

Well her flight isn't for 48 hours. Hopfully it will not get cancled Time will tell.

It's not looking good. The Amsterdam airport is shut through at least Saturday evening, but most people over there think it will last longer. The bigger problem will be the backlog of people and having aircraft in the right places which will take over a week to sort out. Just because you have a ticket and the airport is open will not guarantee you a seat.

Have her book a hotel room.

A few points to think about:

- Capabilities of flying shorter-range aircraft across the pond, not being able to fly around the problems

- Economies of flying around the problems just not there (FCO-EWR was flying today but CDG-JFK was not last time I checked... guess the reroutes don't make economic sense - or see prior point)

- Few alternate travel options (storm in Boston, I can train to NY; can't as easily reroute over the Atlantic despite what Google Maps used to say)

- The airlines are already at near-capacity on many routes
- Busy travel season already commencing

- Immigration issues for some rebooking options (example: If someone flying from Canada to Europe is not allowed into the US, they have fewer rebooking options)

- The right-wing imbeciles that'll continue to claim Climate Change is a hoax because the volcano changed it a tiny bit (oh, wait, off-topic...)

- Immigration issues for some rebooking options (example: If someone flying from Canada to Europe is not allowed into the US, they have fewer rebooking options)

Actually that is not an issue as long as the traveler stays in the transit lounge as he/she is not considered having entered the country until he/she passes immigration. I used to work for Lufthansa at Newark Airport and was the liason for the lounge guest (I ran the Emilia Erhardt LH, BH, Air Portugal combination lounge) for outgoing flights and the immigration/translation/clearance liason for immigration and customs for incoming flights

bajou, you may not be right: the TSA has its new pre-flight screening requirements and has prohibited even overflights of the US without passing the pre-screening requirements in certain circumstances (godforbid an emergency cause an unwanted person to set down in Bangor!).

One thing I have seen no coverage of, but it's been bugging me, is what is the effect on international mail delivery? My google searches are kind of useless as practically every newspaper has a banner at the bottom offering "mail delivery." The other terms I can think of are also very common terms and yield lots of false hits.

Does anybody know what is going on with this?

Don't ask me why this is bothering me because I don't know myself. I just want to know!

Dear bpleat:

I am definitly not right and you are...I just checked it out on http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html

The Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) was news to me..thankfully.

By the way..my name is bajou not banjou

Ryanair (which doesn't fly to the US) has cancelled all flights until at least 1300hrs (1pm) on Monday 19th April! Not good news for passengers stranded abroad....

http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-expects-current-flight-cancellations-to-continue

The ash spewed by an eruption in Iceland forced airlines to cancel flights and redirect planes around the ash. Those diversions caused jetliners to burn more fuel and created delays in the air-cargo business that could quickly run into tens of millions of dollars.

The slowdown could affect everything from package shipments to business meetings and long-planned vacations.

"The costs could be extraordinary," said Jeffrey Price, an aviation professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver.

.........

Mark Kiefer, a Boston-based aviation industry consultant, said he initially planned to send a proposal to a company north of Amsterdam by air courier to meet a Monday deadline.

"They told us that they wouldn't take a package tomorrow, and they wouldn't guarantee you Monday," Kiefer said. Instead, he planned to e-mail the proposal to colleagues in The Hague, have them print it out and then drive about an hour to hand-deliver the document.

Air cargo companies conceded they were scrambling to cope.

FedEx, the world's second-largest package-delivery company, started rerouting flights bound for Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. It also moved some packages by truck instead of air.

Company spokesman Steve Barber could not specify what types of shipments were most affected.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/15/iceland-volcano-cloud-cau_n_539722.html

Trip Insurance carriers are going to make a bundle after this....

Thanks, bmalibashksa ... clearly your Google Fu is better than mine.

According to the BBC, flight restrictions have just been lifted from airspace over Scotland and Northern Ireland. A few flights have been able to leave today.

Very fine ash particles can remain high in the atmosphere for many years, spread around the world by high-altitude winds. This suspended material contributes to spectacular sunsets, as well as an optical phenomenon known as "Bishop's Ring", which refers to a corona or halo effect around the sun.[10] High levels of ash high in the atmosphere causes climate change by cooling the globe for a few years following major eruptions. The last episode of ash-induced global cooling followed the Mount Pinatubo eruption of 1991.[11] The most documented case in recorded history of this phenomenon followed the epic eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, which led to the year without summer in 1816.[12]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_ash

I keep looking for info on other disruptions besides passenger travel and this one struck me, about disruptions in high-end exotic imported produce.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/16/flight-ban-shortages-uk-supermarkets

There will also be some disruption in other sectors if the ash situation doesn't improve in a few days. And unfortunately nobody has a clue when it will end, though evidently at least the weather patterns will be a bit more favorable by next Thursday.

(seriously - next Thursday .... :shocked: ... this is nuts)

http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/27458/european-ash-threat-to-remain.asp

Maybe the volcano will stop making so much ash before then, hopefully ... but there doesn't seem to be much optimism.

There is going to be a huge disruption in the world of publishing: the London Book Fair starts on Sunday, but it looks like no one can get there! Not that anyone cares outside of the industry, it's just our own little drama.

bajou: On the one hand, I've edited my freudian slip; on the other hand... my wife allows me to be correct once per day, and I had to waste it on the TSA!
Seriously, I pretty much knew bc I knew someone who was not allowed in the US, he often flew from Canada to Europe in fear of an "emergency" requiring landing in the US and not knowing what the ramifications of such would be.

CLK: It might not just impact the "import" of the produce, it might impact crops all over Europe.

amandacat: What's a "book" ? Sorry, I was just reading a cartoon where someone was bragging about the battery life of their iMaxi, and his spouse threw him a newspaper/book to counter with its battery life...

miss_I_toe: Is that the same outfit wanting to charge for pay toilets? "Sorry, you need to hold it in for a week..."

I wonder when the comparisons to 9/11-related travel disruptions will begin.
And then the environmental discussions and of course the silliness over non-scientists interpreting scientific data.

Posted By: bpleatI wonder when the comparisons to 9/11-related travel disruptions will begin.
And then the environmental discussions and of course the silliness over non-scientists interpreting scientific data.

All of that has already started. I've seen 9/11 comparisons at least half a dozen times, as well as utter nonsense about environmental impact (probably won't be any, this is a pretty small volcano) and I read on a volcano blog that the media discussion of this volcano "triggering" another one at Katla are ill-informed. (I don't read volcano blogs. I just started looking for some, to try to get a higher level explanation of what might happen.)

That's why I'm sticking to the Comics. And the Hockey scores. And funambol.

Posted By: CLK

Posted By: bpleatI wonder when the comparisons to 9/11-related travel disruptions will begin.
And then the environmental discussions and of course the silliness over non-scientists interpreting scientific data.

All of that has already started. I've seen 9/11 comparisons at least half a dozen times, as well as utter nonsense about environmental impact (probably won't be any, this is a pretty small volcano) and I read on a volcano blog that the media discussion of this volcano "triggering" another one at Katla are ill-informed. (I don't read volcano blogs. I just started looking for some, to try to get a higher level explanation of what might happen.)

I am reading the german papers from Germany, Switzerland and Austria and it is having a major impact on them. New crop doesn't like sulfur and the ash that is settling is making the soil very sulforic. The other problem is that unlike here Europe's lifestock is mainly kept and feeds outside. This will affect milk and egg production too. I remember clearly what happened after Chernobyl. The Radiocesium concentration in milk after the Chernobyl accident was so high that all milk, milk products and produce had to be destroyed. Made it real easy to shop...only frozen stuff for weeks or very very expensive imported fresh produce.