LONDON (Reuters) – A huge ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano spreading out across Europe is causing air travel chaos on a scale unseen since the Sept. 11 attacks and costing airlines hundreds of millions of dollars.
The plume that floated through the upper atmosphere, where it could wreak havoc on jet engines and airframes, threw travel plans into disarray on both sides of the Atlantic yesterday.
Severe disruption of European air traffic was expected on Saturday, aviation officials said. Airports in much of Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands remained closed and flights were set to be grounded in Hungary and parts of Romania.
“I am furious and frustrated,” said Sara Bicoccih, stranded at Frankfurt airport on her way home to Italy from Miami.
The US military had to reroute many flights, including those evacuating the wounded from Afghanistan and Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman said.
“I would think Europe was probably experiencing its greatest disruption to air travel since 9/11,” a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, Britain’s aviation regulator, said.
“In terms of closure of air space, this is worse than after 9/11. The disruption is probably larger than anything we’ve probably seen.”
Following the attacks on Washington and New York in 2001, US air space was closed for three days and European airlines were forced to halt all transatlantic services.
Disruption from the volcanic ash eruption in Iceland is costing airlines more than $200 million a day, air industry group the International Air Transport Association said.
But unless the cloud disrupts flights for weeks, threatening factories’ supply chains, economists do not think it will significantly slow Europe’s shaky recovery from recession or affect second-quarter gross domestic product figures.
“The overall impact should be very limited even if the problem persists for a day or more … ,” IHS Global Insight chief UK and European economist Howard Archer said.
Vulcanologists say the ash could cause problems to air traffic for up to six months if the eruption continues. The financial impact on airlines could be significant.
The fallout hit airline shares yesterday with Lufthansa, British Airways, Air Berlin, Air France-KLM, Iberia and Ryanair down between 1.4 and 3.0 percent.
BA cancelled all flights in and out of London today.
Irish airline Ryanair, Europe’s biggest low-cost carrier, said it would cancel flights to and from northern European countries until 1200 GMT on Monday.
Aviation officials said air space over England and Wales, Germany, the Netherlands and northern France would remain closed at least through this morning.
