20100416
allafrica

Lagos — Thousands of air travelers were stranded yesterday within Nigeria and other parts of the world as a huge ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano turned the skies of Northern Europe into a no-fly zone.

The volcano began erupting on Wednesday for the second time in a month from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier. It hurled a plume of ash six to 11 kilometres into the atmosphere and this spread South-east overnight.

In Nigeria, hundreds of flights coming in and going out of the country were cancelled.

An apology posted on British Airways website said "We are very sorry for the inconvenience to our customers but this is clearly something affecting all carriers and is beyond our control"

The statement also said, "All British Airways short-haul flights into and out of the UK will be cancelled until at least 9am on Friday. A number of longhaul flights due to arrive in the UK from 5.30am on Friday are also delayed or cancelled.

"We are keeping our flying schedule under constant review and will aim to give customers as much notice as possible once we receive more information from National Air Traffic Service (NATS)."

BA said that customers booked to travel on a cancelled flight could claim a full refund or rebook their flight for a later date.

Also, in a telephone interview, Spokesperson for Air France in Nigeria Funmi Odesina told THISDAY that although Air France flights arrived Nigeria yesterday but there would be cancellations to flights that would leave the country today to Paris.

Henceforth, until the airline's weather experts give go-ahead for resumption of flights, that would be the situation, she explained. She remarked that the incident is affecting the whole European airspace.

Air Canada said on its website that 12 flights between London and Canadian destinations have been cancelled. The airline is also waiving fees for those affected by the cancellations. So far, only flights to London are affected, but the airline said wind changes could affect flights to places like Frankfurt and Paris .

"It's unpredictable because of the nature of the situation," it said, noting advisories would be posted on the Air Canada website.

Air Transat also issued a travel warning yesterday to its passengers. The airline had one flight to Glasgow, Scotland, that arrived on time, but the aircraft is now stuck at the airport until the ash passes. Another flight to London 's Gatwick airport was cancelled on Thursday, but the airline's other flights to France and elsewhere remain unaffected at this time, a spokesman said.

Heathrow Airport announced this morning that it was suspending all flights in and out of the airport today. "This is due to the closing of British airspace by the U.K. air traffic control service because of volcanic ash spreading across the U.K. from Iceland ," the airport announced on its website.

"Passengers who are due to fly today should not travel to the airport but should contact their airline for re-ticketing information."

The European air safety organisation said the disruption, the biggest seen in the region, could last another two days and a leading volcano expert said the ash could present intermittent problems to air traffic for six months if the eruption continued. Even if the disruption is short lived, the financial impact on airlines is likely to be significant, a consultant said.

Volcanic ash contains tiny particles of glass and pulverised rock which can damage engines and airframes and an Icelandic volcanologist said on Thursday the eruption was growing more intense.

Britain barred flights in its air space, except in emergencies, until at least 0600 GMT on Friday, with a flight returning soldiers from Afghanistan having to be held in Cyprus .

It was the first time "within living memory" that a natural disaster had caused such a halt, a Spokeswoman for UK's NATS said. Even after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities, Britain did not close its air space, she said.

Northern French airports were due to be shut in stages on yesterday evening, with Paris airports to shut by 11 p.m. at the latest, authorities there said. Brussels, Amsterdam and Geneva airports said they had cancelled a large number of flights and Eurocontrol Spokesman Brian Flynn said yesterday afternoon the problem could persist for a further 48 hours.

Airline staff at Stansted airport, North-east London told customers it could be closed until Sunday, said stranded passenger Andy Evans. "People just don't know what to do," he said. "There are hundreds of people in the queues at the sales desks."

A Spokesman at Heathrow, Europe 's busiest airport, said 840 out of 1,250 flights yesterday were affected, disrupting about 180,000 passengers. More than 120,000 other passengers were affected at Gatwick, Stansted and Glasgow airports.

"There is a big financial impact on the airlines," said Director of Air Transport Consults JLS consulting John Strickland.

"We are now looking at at least a day's business wiped out for the airline business ... even if things were meteorologically fine to fly tomorrow by that time the airlines will have all their aircraft and crew out of position so they have no choice but to cancel further flights."

In 1982, a British Airways jumbo jet lost power in all its engines when it flew into an ash cloud over Indonesia, gliding towards 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, resulting in international contingency plans activated on yesterday.

Scientists said the ash did not pose any health threat because it is at such a high altitude. Professor at the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, Bill McGuire said if the volcano continued erupting for more than 12 months, as it did the last time, periodic disruptions to air traffic could continue.

"The problem is volcanoes are very unpredictable and in this case we have only one eruption to go on," he said. "And a lot depends on the wind. I would expect this shutdown to last a couple of days. But if the eruption continues - and continues to produce ash - we could see repeated disruption over six months or so."

Deputy Head of Operations at Eurocontrol Brian Flynn said the disruption was already unprecedented: "The extent is greater than we've ever seen before in the E.U, the meteorological situation is such that the volcanic ash is progressing very slowly eastwards but there is not a lot of wind... so it is very slow and very dense."