Flights resume in Europe but travel chaos not over

AP

London: Europe’s busiest airport reopened Tuesday as air traffic across the continent lurched back to life. But the gridlock created by Iceland’s volcanic ash plume was far from over: Officials said it would be weeks before all stranded travelers could be brought home.

Passengers wept with relief as flights took off from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, Amsterdam and elsewhere. A jetliner from Vancouver, British Columbia, was the first to land at London’s Heathrow airport, the continent’s busiest, since the volcano erupted last week.

British Airways said it expected about two dozen flights from the United States, Africa and Asia to land by early Wednesday.

Travellers cheered as the first European flights took off.

Jenny Lynn Cohen, waiting at Charles de Gaulle to travel to San Francisco, had a boarding pass but could hardly believe she was going to fly.

"I am a little afraid — I am hopeful that the plane will take off, and that it won’t meet with any volcanic ash," she said.

Chris James, arriving at Heathrow from Mauritius, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that passengers on his flight didn’t know they would land in London until 45 minutes before their plane touched down.

"Initially it was quite a stressful situation, we didn’t know what was happening," James said.

The Eurocontrol air traffic agency said it expected just under half of the 27,500 flights over Europe to go ahead Tuesday, a marked improvement over the last few days. The agency predicted close to normal takeoffs by Friday.

It was the first day since the April 14 eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl) volcano — dormant for nearly 200 years — that travelers were given a reason for hope.

"The situation today is much improved," said Brian Flynn, deputy head of operations at the Brussels-based agency.

Conditions changed fast. Airspace in Germany remained officially closed, but about 800 flights were allowed at low altitude.

Rita and Peter Meyer said they had to share a hotel room with two strangers in Singapore while waiting to find a way home to Germany. News that they could fly to Frankfurt airport came as they slept.

"Just after midnight — after an hour’s sleep — the phone rang (and they said), ’Everyone downstairs, get in taxis to the airport,’" Rita Meyer said.

But with more than 95,000 flights canceled in the last week alone, airlines faced the enormous task of working through the backlog to get passengers where they want to go — a challenge that could take days or even weeks.

Passengers with current tickets were being given priority; those who had been stranded for days were told to either buy a new ticket or take their chances using the old one — a wait that could be days or weeks for the next available seat.

"Once your flight’s canceled, you go to the back of the queue," said Laurie Price, director of aviation strategy at consultant Mott Macdonald, who was stranded in Halifax, Canada. "It seems intrinsically unfair."

The volcano that prompted the turmoil continued to rumble, and tremors could be heard and felt as far as 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the crater.

"It’s like a shaking in the belly. People in the area are disturbed by this," said Kristin Vogfjord, a geologist at the Icelandic Met Office.

Land and water at farms in the ash zone have suffered since the volcano’s eruption, with normally green pastures turned black and hard by the ash.

Vigtus Andresson said grazing land and water on his farm near the town of Hvolsvollur were contaminated, making it necessary to evacuate many of the horses and sheep he raises there. He said he also must slaughter some of his 29 horses because there is no place for them to go.

Scientists were worried that the eruption could trigger an even larger eruption at the nearby Katla volcano, which sits on the massive Myrdalsjokull icecap. Its last major eruption was in 1918.

"The activity of one volcano sometimes triggers the next one, and Katla has been active together with Eyjafjallajokull in the past," said Pall Einarsson, professor of geophysics at the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland.

Volcano experts say that should such an eruption occur, air travelers might expect more disruptions, depending on prevailing winds. Of Iceland’s eight volcanic eruptions in the last 40 years, only the recent one at Eyjafjallajokull was followed by winds blowing southeast toward northern Europe.

While seismic activity at the volcano had increased, the ash plume appeared to be shrinking — though it wasn’t moving very fast.

Sarah Holland of Britain’s Meteorological office said the plume was being held over Britain by a high pressure system that showed no signs of changing.

"The weather patterns are very static at the moment. It’s unusual to have that for such a long period of time," she said. "Unfortunately, it looks like it’s going to stay that way for the next couple of days, bringing the ash over the U.K."

Early on Tuesday, a Eurocontrol volcanic ash map listed the airspace between Iceland and Britain and Ireland as a no-fly zone, along with much of the Baltic Sea and surrounding area.

Still, planes were allowed to fly above 20,000 feet (7,000 kilometers) in Britain, ahead of the reopening of airspace nationwide Tuesday evening.

Dozens of flights departed and arrived at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport as the government announced that flights could be carried out in darkness using instruments. Airports in Switzerland, central Europe and Scandinavia also reopened, and some flights took off from Asia headed for southern Europe, where air travel was not affected. Spain piled on extra buses, trains and ferries to handle an expected rush of passengers.

Polish aviation authorities said they planned to reopen the country’s airspace Wednesday morning.

Even the U.S. Air Force was grounded. Capt. Alysia Harvey, the spokeswoman for the U.S. Air Force’s 48th Fighter Wing at Lakenheath, said all sorties had been canceled there since last Thursday. Lakenheath is the largest U.S. air base in England, and the only one in Europe that has an F-15 fighter wing.

"Flying was cancelled because it’s difficult to predict exactly where the cloud is going to be or the effect it will have on aircraft engines," she said.