Flights have been disrupted across northern Europe

[Nictoshek]

Travel incidents like these, will make the current generation of passenger aircraft OBSOLETE




www.reactionengines.co.uk/

[kaima]

www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,689735,00.html

Smoke and Mirrors
Airline Bosses Attack Volcano Flight Ban

Photo Gallery: 27 Photos
AP

As airport disruptions in Europe enter their fifth day, airline bosses are calling for the flight ban to be lifted. Test flights show that the volcanic ash in the air poses little danger to planes, they say. Germany's transport minister has responded by saying he will not allow profits to be put above safety.

In Iceland, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano is continuing to spew out ash as tens of thousands of airline passengers remain stranded around the world. But as the aviation crisis enters its fifth day, Europe's airlines are becoming increasingly critical of the ongoing flight ban, which is costing them hundreds of millions of euros.

Wolfgang Mayrhuber, the CEO of Germany's Lufthansa, Europe's largest airline, expressed himself in strong words Sunday and dismissed concerns about passenger safety as unfounded. Many airlines have now completed test flights, Mayrhuber told the German television station ZDF on Sunday evening. After studying the ash cloud, they have come to the conclusion that the ash has become so dispersed "that there is no risk," he said.

When asked whether flights in Europe were currently possible, Mayrhuber answered: "Yes, that's something we say very clearly." He added there might be "limits" to services. "We would never take risks," the Lufthansa boss said, but he emphasized that the existing data needed to be examined. "No one would fly through a cloud of volcanic ash, but what we have seen over the past three days did not pose any kind of potential danger."

Air Berlin CEO Joachim Hunold criticized the fact that the results of test flights had no influence on the decision of the air traffic control authorities as to whether to reopen airspace in countries across Europe. "In Germany, no one has even sent up a weather balloon to measure if volcanic ash is in the air, and if so, how much," Hunold told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Safety Concerns

The German Transport Ministry said in a statement that there is no Europe-wide measurement network that could determine the ash concentration in the air, because volcanic eruptions of this kind are very rare. Indeed, the weather balloons operated by the German Weather Service (DWD) are not equipped with sensors capable of measuring concentrations of volcanic ash. For that reason, the distribution of the ash plume is being calculated on computers.

Several other European airlines have also criticized the airspace closure and demanded the flight ban be lifted, after conducting test flights. The ban was prompted by fears that the volcanic ash could seriously damage planes' engines. A 1989 incident involving a brand new Boeing 747 operated by Dutch national carrier KLM resulted in a near crash and $80 million in damage to the aircraft after the plane flew through a volcanic ash plume in Alaska.

*


5 Photos
Photo Gallery: The Ash Plume's Spread

European flight safety authorities are basing their decisions to close airspaces on data provided by the London-based Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC). Over the weekend, the organization defended its forecast methods, saying they were "very reliable" and had been proven on many occasions. There are nine centers around the world established in the mid-1990s to help predict, detect and warn against the dangers to aviation posed by volcanic ash.

Earlier on Sunday, German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer had said that he would not allow himself "to be put under pressure by airlines" and emphasized that safety was the top priority. He said he would never allow "the risk to passengers' life and limb to be offset against loss of revenue."

Lufthansa CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber responded to Ramsauer's comments by saying it was "outrageous to accuse Lufthansa or the German airlines of putting profit before safety."

Meanwhile, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) said it would send a plane equipped with the necessary measuring equipment into the ash cloud on Monday in order to better determine the dangers, if any, presented by Eyjafjallajökull's plume.

On Monday, European Union transport ministers are to hold a meeting to discuss the continuing air chaos. The ministers will be meeting in a video conference, hosted by Spain, as they are not able to travel to meet in person, due to the flight ban.

"We cannot just wait until this ash cloud dissipates," commented EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas, adding that European authorities were trying to find a solution that did not compromise safety.

'Not the Slightest Scratch'

Several German airports, including those in Berlin, Hanover, Erfurt, Leipzig and Frankfurt, opened for a few hours on Sunday to allow a limited number of flights. Some 165 tourists landed in Hanover on Sunday evening on a charter flight from the Spanish island of Gran Canaria.

Lufthansa also flew several planes from Munich to Frankfurt without passengers on test flights. A spokesperson for the company said that there was "not the slightest scratch" on the planes, despite their having flown through the "supposedly critical zone."

There will be no flights in German airspace until Monday evening at the earliest. On Monday morning, Germany's flight safety agency, DFS, extended the closure of airspace to 8 p.m. Monday. German airlines had already canceled all flights for Monday.

Many other European countries are continuing with the airspace closure on Monday. In France most airports are closed until Tuesday morning. British airspace will be closed at least until 6 p.m. local time on Monday.

Meteorologists do not expect any major changes in the ash cloud in the coming days, due to weather conditions.

Stable Weather Trends

Europe's largest budget airline, Ryanair, has canceled all flights in northern Europe until 1 p.m. on Wednesday. The decision was taken on the basis of "current stable weather trends which continue to blow potentially dangerous volcanic ash across the British Isles, Scandinavia and Europe," Ryanair announced on Sunday.

In Austria, however, flights were allowed as of 5 a.m. on Monday. The question of which routes were operating was the responsibility of the airlines, said a spokesman for the air traffic control authority Austro Control. The current weather forecasts and the fact that test flights had shown no damage to the exterior or engines of the airplanes, suggests that there is "currently no danger from ash and dust particles," the spokesman said.

Stockholm's Arlanda airport is also open again on Monday for takeoffs and landings. The Swedish aviation authority announced that routes for destinations to the north and west are allowed to operate as of 8 a.m. In Norway, Oslo's international airport also restarted operations on Sunday evening, with some restrictions. Swedish and Norwegian airspace is now almost completely open again.

Economic Effects

Germany industry is calling for the ban on night flights to be suspended, at least temporarily, out of concern for damage to the economy. The president of the German Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK), Hans Heinrich Driftmann demanded a suspension of the night flight ban so that air transport can quickly normalize after the ash cloud has cleared.

Since Thursday, more than 63,000 flights have been canceled throughout Europe, according to the flight safety authority Eurocontrol, which coordinates flights between different European airspaces. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that the disruptions are costing the airline industry at least €150 million per day.

Many passengers whose flights have been cancelled have been using buses, trains, taxis and rental cars to try to get to their destinations. Those affected by the disruptions include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who finally returned to Berlin on Sunday after a circuitous trip home from the US. She was supposed to arrive back in Germany on Friday, but was diverted to Lisbon. From there, she flew to Rome and stayed Saturday night in the city of Bolzano in Trentino-South Tyrol before returning to Berlin by bus.

[kaima]

A series of dispatches from Spiegel.de

The Finnish military has released images of damage caused to fighter jet engines by the volcanic ash, Britain is resorting to the Royal Navy in a 'Dunkirk-style' rescue mission for holidaymakers and the IATA air traffic association is decrying a "European mess." Read the latest in our Eyjafjallajökull blog.

Transit Passengers allowed to leave German Airports

By Monday morning the German authorities had handed out 1,600 special transit visas to those trapped in transit lounges. German police were dispatched to affected airports to help hand out the visas. The special visas allow the travellers to leave the airport and travel by train to accommodation elsewhere in Germany or to find a nearby hotel.

cis

Finnish Air Force Reports Engine Damage

While many airlines are complaining that European authorities are exaggeratiing the risk to air traffic from volcanic ash in the air, officials have said the engines of fighter jets have been affected by it. Reuters cited a senior US official as saying on Monday that glass build-up was found in an engine of a NATO F-16 fighter plane. Separately, the Finnish Air Force said Boeing F-18 Hornet fighters were affected by ash before the airspace closures last Thursday, the Danish daily Politiken reported .

"A post-landing inspection revealed accumulations of powdery volcanic dust in the aircraft's air intakes. Imagery thus obtained indicated that even a short-duration flight inside an ash cloud may cause substantial damage to aircraft engines," the Finnish Air Force says on its Web site.

The fighters of the Lapland Air Command had been flying training missions over Northern Finland on Thursday morning while airspace was still open to traffic, Politiken reported.

cro

Criticism from International Air Traffic Association

The International Air Traffic Association, IATA, has sharply attacked European authorities over their response to the ash cloud, calling it a "European mess." IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani told a news conference in Paris on Monday: "We did not focus on figures and facts. Europe was using a theoretical mathematical approach, that is not what we need."

He said test flights carried out by European airlines in the last couple of days showed that in many cases "the concentration of ashes was zero or very limited." There had been no risk assessment, no consultations, no coordination and no leadership in the European Union, Bisignani said. He also complained that it had taken five days for the European Commission to organize a video conference to discuss the problem. European transport ministers were due to discuss the crisis at 1 p.m. GMT on Monday.

cro

Some German Pilots Celebrating Extra Air Space

Not everyone was upset about the disruptions to air traffic caused by the volcanic ash. Over the weekend the glider pilots of Boberg, a town near Hamburg, are one of the few groups celebrating the lack of planes in the sky. Because their town is under a flight path the glider pilots are usually only allowed to fly as high as 750 meters. But on Sunday, the skies were clear as high as 3,000 meters above them. Many of the local glider pilots took advantage of the sunny weather and the lack of air transport to launch. However as they themselves pointed out, the thermals -- warm air coming off the earth that the glider pilots use to rise higher -- only last up to a thousand feet above the ground. To get any higher, gliders need to have motors or be pulled by another aircraft, local flying teacher Holger Weitzel told the Bergedorfer Zeitung. To do that the glider pilot must have undergone their annual air worthiness test. And, as Weitzel pointed out, only two weekends into gliding season, there were not that many glider pilots who had already undergone the testing.

Frankfurt Airport offers Clean Underwear, Airport Tours and Art Classes

Many of the hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded by the clouds of volcanic ash that have disrupted air travel in Europe for the past few days, have been able to leave the airport and either find alternative accommodation or other ways home. But some have not been so lucky. Around 700 travelers have found themselves trapped in the limbo that is the transit lounge at Frankfurt Airport, Germany's busiest and Europe's third largest airport. Many of them have been in the transit lounge for several days now, with only their hand luggage and unable to access their property.

However Fraport, the company that runs the airport, has tried to make the situation as comfortable as possible. Besides providing obvious essentials, such as meals, and setting up camp beds as well as a communications lounge where mobile phones could be recharged and the Internet could be accessed, this has also included handing out clean underwear and clean T-shirts, that airport staff purchased from local stores.

Instead of displaying flight information the monitors at the various gates are showing television programs in English, Spanish, French and Arabic. The stranded passengers, who are considered to be in neither one country nor another while they are in transit, have been cleared to leave the transit lounges to take a shuttle bus to the airport gym, where they can take a shower and for entertainment, they have also been offered tours of the airport.

Meanwhile children are being catered for with toys and art equipment and craftspeople have been hired to lead kids' workshops where the junior travelers can make things like colored picture frames.

And should the whole situation become too much for anyone, Fraport is also offering passengers the opportunity to talk to members of a crisis intervention team. The airport staff say that most passengers are handling the situation admirably and the crisis team is really only there so that individuals can express emotions, such as anger at missing a wedding or holiday.

cis


A Finnish Defense Forces still image of damage caused to a Finnish Air Force F-16 fighter jet by the volcanic ash cloud prior to the decision to close the country's airspace on Thursday.

[karl]

Apr 19, 2010 8:17:43 GMT -7 kaima said:

www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,689735,00.html

Smoke and Mirrors
Airline Bosses Attack Volcano Flight Ban

Photo Gallery: 27 Photos
AP

As airport disruptions in Europe enter their fifth day, airline bosses are calling for the flight ban to be lifted. Test flights show that the volcanic ash in the air poses little danger to planes, they say. Germany's transport minister has responded by saying he will not allow profits to be put above safety.

In Iceland, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano is continuing to spew out ash as tens of thousands of airline passengers remain stranded around the world. But as the aviation crisis enters its fifth day, Europe's airlines are becoming increasingly critical of the ongoing flight ban, which is costing them hundreds of millions of euros.

Wolfgang Mayrhuber, the CEO of Germany's Lufthansa, Europe's largest airline, expressed himself in strong words Sunday and dismissed concerns about passenger safety as unfounded. Many airlines have now completed test flights, Mayrhuber told the German television station ZDF on Sunday evening. After studying the ash cloud, they have come to the conclusion that the ash has become so dispersed "that there is no risk," he said.

When asked whether flights in Europe were currently possible, Mayrhuber answered: "Yes, that's something we say very clearly." He added there might be "limits" to services. "We would never take risks," the Lufthansa boss said, but he emphasized that the existing data needed to be examined. "No one would fly through a cloud of volcanic ash, but what we have seen over the past three days did not pose any kind of potential danger."

Air Berlin CEO Joachim Hunold criticized the fact that the results of test flights had no influence on the decision of the air traffic control authorities as to whether to reopen airspace in countries across Europe. "In Germany, no one has even sent up a weather balloon to measure if volcanic ash is in the air, and if so, how much," Hunold told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Safety Concerns

The German Transport Ministry said in a statement that there is no Europe-wide measurement network that could determine the ash concentration in the air, because volcanic eruptions of this kind are very rare. Indeed, the weather balloons operated by the German Weather Service (DWD) are not equipped with sensors capable of measuring concentrations of volcanic ash. For that reason, the distribution of the ash plume is being calculated on computers.

Several other European airlines have also criticized the airspace closure and demanded the flight ban be lifted, after conducting test flights. The ban was prompted by fears that the volcanic ash could seriously damage planes' engines. A 1989 incident involving a brand new Boeing 747 operated by Dutch national carrier KLM resulted in a near crash and $80 million in damage to the aircraft after the plane flew through a volcanic ash plume in Alaska.

*


5 Photos
Photo Gallery: The Ash Plume's Spread

European flight safety authorities are basing their decisions to close airspaces on data provided by the London-based Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC). Over the weekend, the organization defended its forecast methods, saying they were "very reliable" and had been proven on many occasions. There are nine centers around the world established in the mid-1990s to help predict, detect and warn against the dangers to aviation posed by volcanic ash.

Earlier on Sunday, German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer had said that he would not allow himself "to be put under pressure by airlines" and emphasized that safety was the top priority. He said he would never allow "the risk to passengers' life and limb to be offset against loss of revenue."

Lufthansa CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber responded to Ramsauer's comments by saying it was "outrageous to accuse Lufthansa or the German airlines of putting profit before safety."

Meanwhile, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) said it would send a plane equipped with the necessary measuring equipment into the ash cloud on Monday in order to better determine the dangers, if any, presented by Eyjafjallajökull's plume.

On Monday, European Union transport ministers are to hold a meeting to discuss the continuing air chaos. The ministers will be meeting in a video conference, hosted by Spain, as they are not able to travel to meet in person, due to the flight ban.

"We cannot just wait until this ash cloud dissipates," commented EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas, adding that European authorities were trying to find a solution that did not compromise safety.

'Not the Slightest Scratch'

Several German airports, including those in Berlin, Hanover, Erfurt, Leipzig and Frankfurt, opened for a few hours on Sunday to allow a limited number of flights. Some 165 tourists landed in Hanover on Sunday evening on a charter flight from the Spanish island of Gran Canaria.

Lufthansa also flew several planes from Munich to Frankfurt without passengers on test flights. A spokesperson for the company said that there was "not the slightest scratch" on the planes, despite their having flown through the "supposedly critical zone."

There will be no flights in German airspace until Monday evening at the earliest. On Monday morning, Germany's flight safety agency, DFS, extended the closure of airspace to 8 p.m. Monday. German airlines had already canceled all flights for Monday.

Many other European countries are continuing with the airspace closure on Monday. In France most airports are closed until Tuesday morning. British airspace will be closed at least until 6 p.m. local time on Monday.

Meteorologists do not expect any major changes in the ash cloud in the coming days, due to weather conditions.

Stable Weather Trends

Europe's largest budget airline, Ryanair, has canceled all flights in northern Europe until 1 p.m. on Wednesday. The decision was taken on the basis of "current stable weather trends which continue to blow potentially dangerous volcanic ash across the British Isles, Scandinavia and Europe," Ryanair announced on Sunday.

In Austria, however, flights were allowed as of 5 a.m. on Monday. The question of which routes were operating was the responsibility of the airlines, said a spokesman for the air traffic control authority Austro Control. The current weather forecasts and the fact that test flights had shown no damage to the exterior or engines of the airplanes, suggests that there is "currently no danger from ash and dust particles," the spokesman said.

Stockholm's Arlanda airport is also open again on Monday for takeoffs and landings. The Swedish aviation authority announced that routes for destinations to the north and west are allowed to operate as of 8 a.m. In Norway, Oslo's international airport also restarted operations on Sunday evening, with some restrictions. Swedish and Norwegian airspace is now almost completely open again.

Economic Effects

Germany industry is calling for the ban on night flights to be suspended, at least temporarily, out of concern for damage to the economy. The president of the German Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK), Hans Heinrich Driftmann demanded a suspension of the night flight ban so that air transport can quickly normalize after the ash cloud has cleared.

Since Thursday, more than 63,000 flights have been canceled throughout Europe, according to the flight safety authority Eurocontrol, which coordinates flights between different European airspaces. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that the disruptions are costing the airline industry at least €150 million per day.

Many passengers whose flights have been cancelled have been using buses, trains, taxis and rental cars to try to get to their destinations. Those affected by the disruptions include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who finally returned to Berlin on Sunday after a circuitous trip home from the US. She was supposed to arrive back in Germany on Friday, but was diverted to Lisbon. From there, she flew to Rome and stayed Saturday night in the city of Bolzano in Trentino-South Tyrol before returning to Berlin by bus.

For as a person, I am in complete agreement with The {DFS}. It is simply not worth high risk of the safety of passengers and crew until the particulates of volcanic matter have been dispersed to a safe level.

It is understandable, of the prime component of volcanic particulate of matter, is pulverized rock. In unacceptable quantities ingested into the turbine power plants, it will potentially give cause for shut down in mid-air. With out the opportunity for aerial restart, the resulting air-crash is simply not worth the risk over the issue of lost profits.

For perhaps the dispursion is safe in one sector, is not a gurrantee that this will be uniform in all effected areas.

Karl