DREAMING OF HOME: With the Icelandic volcano still spewing ash across northern Europe, stranded travelers struggle to sleep on hard cots and even harder floors in a JFK terminal yesterday. (AP)
This is starting to become a serious pain in the ash.
The Icelandic volcano that has brought European travel to a standstill continued to erupt yesterday, spewing abrasive ash ever farther and threatening to cripple global air travel and trade throughout this week, experts said.
“There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight,” said Icelandic geologist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson.
“The activity has been quite vigorous overnight, causing the eruption column to grow.”
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The swath of closed airspace continued to grow east across Europe, spreading from England to as far as Ukraine, affecting millions of air travelers.
Only 5,000 of a scheduled 22,000 airplane flights across the continent were able to take off yesterday as civil aviation authorities increased restrictions.
Over 400 trans-Atlantic flights were canceled yesterday with only a handful being allowed to take off, authorities said.
Parts of southern Europe, however, remained unaffected.
Forecasters say a change in wind patterns could blow additional ash over the continent and geologists say the volcano is showing no sign letting up, continuing to pose a hazard to airplanes whose engines can be severely damaged by the sand-like ash.
As airports remained closed for a third day, airlines were beginning to mull employee layoffs and the reorganization of flight patterns.
The Eyjafjallajokul volcano is causing the biggest disruption of air traffic since the 9/11 attacks, when 40,000 flights were grounded every day for three days.
“There is going to be a lot of fallout from this,” said Robert Herbst, an airline-industry analyst. “It’s just a huge mess to try and get this straightened out.”
At the request of the European Union, Dutch carrier KLM ran a test flight at a higher-than-normal altitude of 42,600 feet yesterday, hoping to find a safe path. The plane landed safely but tests were being conducted to determine if the Boeing 737 suffered any damage.
A Russian commercial jet also tried its luck flying from Moscow to Rome beneath the ash cloud but was forced to land in Vienna after running low on fuel, according to the Aviation Herald.
German carrier Lufthansa — which had to ground its entire global fleet — flew 10 empty planes at low altitude from Munich to Frankfurt to have them in place when the restrictions are finally lifted.
“There has never been anything like this,” an airline spokesman said.
The airline industry faces up to $200 million in losses a day, according to the International Air Transport Association.
Other businesses reliant on air travel — including international package-delivery companies and producers of perishable goods — were also considering transportation alternatives.
Economic experts said the disruption was unlikely to have any real deep affect on the European economy in the immediate future.
“The overall impact should be very limited even if the problem persists for a day or more,” said Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight.