While many countries tried to reopen their airports, air traffic disruption will continue today throughout most of Europe, even though the situation might change tomorrow. The situation is actually changing every hour, so adjusting our rough country map is a messy business I will do in the next hours (you know, I am manually doing all the changes here – it feels like building a puzzle where pieces are changing shape every minute). The website Airline and Airport Links has a useful list of links to all airlines and airports throughout the globe.
Airlines representatives are more and more angered at the fly restrictions imposed on them by controlling bodies and authorities, saying they are based only on forecast schemes that simply do not work. Test flights are being conducted throughout Europe to find a solution. Reliable companies like British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa, Air Berlin reported that no anomaly of any kind was registered in their test flights until now.
On the other hand, one should also understand that authorities are in a difficult position. After all, who would want to risk giving the green light and then have a bunch of planes crashing in their air space? Simply put, there are way too many variables to take into consideration that would make any prediction difficult. The thing striking me as peculiar is that scientific researchers seem wary of the results of a few test flights, and studies conducted in the past underline that predicting a plane behavior into an ash cloud is something that should never be done lightly, regardless of the average ash concentration (Wired.com has an excellent article on the topic). Could it be that for airlines – but maybe for most of the world we live in – it is always mostly a matter of risk assessment? In other words, from their point of view, if chances of incidents and associated financial risk are lower than the crazy amount of money they are losing everyday, then it is time to fly. Scientific tests conducted in Scotland yesterday confirmed the ash cloud was still dangerous for planes. The German Aerospace Center is conducting a series of tests today, keeping the world updated about their findings through their Twitter page.
The good news is that the ash production, for the time being, is diminishing at the eruption’s location. This is why many hope that more than 50% of the air space in Europe will reopen by Tuesday. U.K. flight ban might be lifted tomorrow, and the same might happen throughout Europe. The plan is to create fly channels where the situation is monitored constantly and restrictions are imposed or lifted according to the situation. Anyhow, the ash cloud is also spreading, and while less dense than it was before, it now goes from the arctic circle in the North to the Mediterranean coast in the South, from Russia in the East to the Atlantic in the West. Many scientists think the ash cloud might reach Canada in the West, even though there is no forecast on concentration of the ash cloud at such distances.
AP posted a beautiful video on their YouTube Channel:
In Iceland, in the meanwhile, a forecast informed the country that the ash cloud might reach the Capital Region tomorrow. Planes are still flying as usual, but I will expand on this in the next update.