Volcanic Ash Cloud Causes European Air Travel Chaos

[MB1]

There's still some BA flights circling over the Irish sea and the West coast of Ireland. BA38 now appears to be heading for Amsterdam and the Houston flight looks like its going to MAD..

The Eazyjet flight went from Luton, flew over Liverpool and is nearly back at Luton. Colusion between Eazyjet and BA. If the Eazyjet a/c can takeoff and land why cannot the BA a/c land ?

One is diverted to Brussels, and now 2 had been diverted to Newcastle, flight from Toronto expected in a few minutes, 1 minute ago on BBC News24.

[ukrules]

There's still some BA flights circling over the Irish sea and the West coast of Ireland. BA38 now appears to be heading for Amsterdam and the Houston flight looks like its going to MAD..

The Eazyjet flight went from Luton, flew over Liverpool and is nearly back at Luton. Colusion between Eazyjet and BA. If the Eazyjet a/c can takeoff and land why cannot the BA a/c land ?

Something is going on here, looks like BA are / were attempting to force some landings. The BA38 is now heading away from Amsterdam, one of them looks like it's heading for Dublin.

[Orac]

The airlines are definately ramping up the pressure with the buck being passed from NATS to the CAA to the engine manufacturers!

[Orac]

Shannon Airport has now said they will be taking in 11 BA flights over the next 2 hours

[tso310]

From another site one guy is monitoring the chat between BA284 from San Francisco and Shannon. The BA pilot says he will continue circling for 2 hours before making a decision to divert.

[ukrules]

From another site one guy is monitoring the chat between BA284 from San Francisco and Shannon. The BA pilot says he will continue circling for 2 hours before making a decision to divert.

That would be so annoying after a long flight like that, then again it would be worth the two hour wait to avoid landing there.

[tso310]

Looks like BA will lose this one. Still got BA284 is circling over the west coast of Ireland and BA84 over the Isle of Man.

[tso310]

Shannon Airport has now said they will be taking in 11 BA flights over the next 2 hours

Looks like party time in Shannon tonight.

[roamer]

20.00 GMT. CAA saying Heathrow and Gatwick still closed and no permission to land for the flights listed as en route....BA have 26 inbound flights....possible for some to divert to Newcastle but large jets can not take off again fully loaded....

[tso310]

20:10 BST BA says it still wants to land some flights at LHR tonight. There's more twists and turns in this than a season of 24. BA84 is still circling around the Isle of Man.

[tso310]

Looks like LHR to reopen after 22:00 with caveats.

[roamer]

20.17 GMT. CAA statement phased reintroduction from 22.00. Lot of caveats though.

Edit. Sorry Tso310, crossposted lots of caveats as you said.

[tso310]

Looks like the party in Shannon will be off. Better place to have a booze up than Brussels.

[MB1]

Latest news BBC just reported that all airports UK/airspace to reopen at 10pm tonight with restrictions, CAA have said that after every flight aircraft must be inspected for engine damage.

Looks like the skys are coming alive again.

"All UK airports can reopen from 2200 BST on Tuesday, the Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has said.

Lord Adonis made the statement after consultation with the Civil Aviation Authority and a reassessment of the risk to aircraft from volcanic ash.

Some restrictions will remain in place, but they will be much smaller than those enforced under the current ban.

Lord Adonis said after the ban was lifted it would be up to airlines to bring flight schedules back on track.

Dame Deirdre Hutton of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said there had been detailed consultation with experts to reassess the tolerance of planes to the ash cloud.

Lord Adonis emphasised that safety remained paramount.

He said: "It is essential that we guarantee to the travelling public that the airlines are safe and that planes can safely fly."

Despite the lifting of the ban, it will be some time before flights return to normal.

[ukrules]

This is good news, I do wonder if the real long haul operators will be jittery for a day or so in case flights are re routed, this situation could change at any moment, if this ash cloud gets worse I am sure they won't hesitate to close it all again.

I can't help wondering that there's some politics at play here, once they opened up the airspace for overflying this seemed inevitable with BA playing these tricks and diverting flights to every surrounding country. I really hope there aren't any incidents with any flights after this reopening.

I also suspect that BA could be gathering evidence for future litigation against the powers that be within the UK.

[tso310]

This is good news, I do wonder if the real long haul operators will be jittery for a day or so in case flights are re routed, this situation could change at any moment, if this ash cloud gets worse I am sure they won't hesitate to close it all again.

I can't help wondering that there's some politics at play here, once they opened up the airspace for overflying this seemed inevitable with BA playing these tricks and diverting flights to every surrounding country. I really hope there aren't any incidents with any flights after this reopening.

I also suspect that BA could be gathering evidence for future litigation against the powers that be within the UK.

Its certainly an interesting situation. Who knows how it will pan out.

I think the clincher tonight was the Eazyjet flight. It would have spent its whole flight below 20,000ft. Why conduct the flight at the time that they did, when a number of BA flights were approaching UK airspace ?

Meanwhile it looks like BA84 will be the first to land.

[MB1]

This is good news, I do wonder if the real long haul operators will be jittery for a day or so in case flights are re routed, this situation could change at any moment, if this ash cloud gets worse I am sure they won't hesitate to close it all again.

I can't help wondering that there's some politics at play here, once they opened up the airspace for overflying this seemed inevitable with BA playing these tricks and diverting flights to every surrounding country. I really hope there aren't any incidents with any flights after this reopening.

I also suspect that BA could be gathering evidence for future litigation against the powers that be within the UK.

Well on a brightside, you might be making your 4am trip to the airport afterall..

As for BA, I'm sure Willie walsh has something up his sleeve but I can't see how he can blame the government for this, maybe he'll chase CAA and NATS. Just hope the Government give no more bailouts, we can't afford it.

[ukrules]

Its certainly an interesting situation. Who knows how it will pan out.

I think the clincher tonight was the Eazyjet flight. It would have spent its whole flight below 20,000ft. Why conduct the flight at the time that they did, when a number of BA flights were approaching UK airspace ?

Meanwhile it looks like BA84 will be the first to land.

Yes, it seems like an organised attempt to force the hand of the authorities. Annoying hundreds of thousands of voters two weeks before an election is not a good idea for anyone. This will drag on for weeks though, my mates new flight is not for another 12 days and he was meant to be flying BKK-LHR with Thai right now, the flight was due to take off just after midnight tonight BKK time. It now looks like the airports will be fully open had his flight took off as planned.

[ukrules]

Well on a brightside, you might be making your 4am trip to the airport afterall..

Well not me, my flight is cancelled already - they made the announcement hours and hours ago but my friend who has the early flight on Thursday morning with Jet will be very pleased when she hears this news, she was getting quite worried about the lack of information and difficulties involved in contacting the airline directly.

[ukrules]

It seems one of the BA planes has landed at Heathrow already and it's set to continue !

[LaoPo]

Lots of planes over Europe:

http://www.flightradar24.com/

LaoPo

[roamer]

Bad science. Driven by political and economic factors. What we actually know about the effects and behavior of volcanic ash in the atmosphere could be written on my fingernail in 57 different languages plus Esperanto.

The temptation now will be to put ever more flights into the air, in the meantime there is absolutely no reason to believe, and certainly no science, to think/believe/know that the volcano won't push out more ash, change the composition of the particulates. That atmospheric conditions won't change the height level, density etc. Should this happen when many flights are aloft be interesting to see how airports cope with diversions.

More than one or two airlines took to the sky in test flights and declared "no problem"....well it would'nt be as they did,nt fly through the ash. Nato fighter jets that did need a lot of work on the engines to remove effects of the ash before they can fly again.

Can't defy the needs to keep planes in the air but also can't help feeling glad I ain't up there.

[tw25rw]

Examples of previous volcanic ash clouds affecting flights: came across this one in 1982, a BA 747 flight from Malaysia to Australia lost power in all 4 engines at 37k ft when it flew into an ash cloud.

More here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8622099.stm

That was an actual ash cloud. What was over Britain was nothing like that.

[tw25rw]

It seems one of the BA planes has landed at Heathrow already and it's set to continue !

2 just flew over my home in the last few minutes. The end of this farce is here, at least temporarily.

[Basil B]

It seems news of opening of UK airports came a few hours to late for passengers with confirmed seats on flights from BKK in the early hours of the 21st.

I understand the their was suggestion that a few airlines knew at 17:00BST (23:00hrs Thai time) that there might be an opening of airports last night but this was not confirmed until 21:00BST (03:00 Thai time) far to late for most BKK flight departing for the UK or connecting flights.

[tso310]

Volcano gate is already starting. I'm afraid the UK Met office, who are the agency for tracking volcanic ash in Europe are going to get hammered. Already been nicknamed Mystic Met.

Really it should be called Eyjafjallajokull gate.

[Maestro]

Musician explains volcano's name

[LaoPo]

Volcano gate is already starting. I'm afraid the UK Met office, who are the agency for tracking volcanic ash in Europe are going to get hammered. Already been nicknamed Mystic Met.

Theres always a "gate"; nobody knew (last week) how dangerous the volcano ashes were and it was a just decision to halt all air traffic.

If there had been 2, 3 or more airline crashes and hundreds or more people would have died we would have had another "gate" and the whole world would have blamed the authorities that they didn't close airspace for all traffic.

EDIT:

This link, posted by Astral in News Clippings says it all....stunning photos:

http://blogs.tampabay.com/photo/2010/04/iceland-volcano.html

LaoPo

[midas]

World Airways Jet Grounded In Europe, Possible Engine Damage From Ash

http://www.businessinsider.com/world-airwa...e-damage-2010-4