Europe Air Travel Resumes, Blame Game Begins

As airliners received permission to resume flights over Europe on Wednesday, after a five-day flight ban.
Europe Air Travel Resumes, Blame Game Begins
CLOUD CONTROL: Smoke and ash billow from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano near Hvolsvollur Iceland, on April 21. (Emmanuele Dunand/Getty Images)
Jasper Fakkert
4/21/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015

<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/98588960.jpg" alt="CLOUD CONTROL: Smoke and ash billow from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano near Hvolsvollur Iceland, on April 21.  (Emmanuele Dunand/Getty Images)" title="CLOUD CONTROL: Smoke and ash billow from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano near Hvolsvollur Iceland, on April 21.  (Emmanuele Dunand/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1820780"/></a>
CLOUD CONTROL: Smoke and ash billow from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano near Hvolsvollur Iceland, on April 21.  (Emmanuele Dunand/Getty Images)
AMSTERDAM—As airliners received permission to resume flights over Europe on Wednesday, after a five-day flight ban, airlines are now questioning whether the ban, which caused the industry an estimated $1.7 billion, was justified.

The flight ban was imposed on Friday after Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted creating an ash cloud that drifted across Europe. The safety measures taken were unprecedented in their scale, affecting millions of travelers worldwide.

Until now, airline safety regulations for volcanic ash have been for pilots to avoid it. But with ash clouds drifting over many of Europe’s main airports, this would have been impossible. The incident has revealed how little is actually known about the effects of ash clouds on airplanes.

Governments say that the time was needed to perform tests to see what the impact of flying through the ash would be.  Airlines and stranded travelers are now asking authorities at both the national and European level for answers about the length of the flight ban. In reply, British Transport Secretary Lord Adonis told the BBC on Wednesday that Britain had been “too cautious” in its handling of the situation.

As early as the weekend, European airlines had pressured authorities to ease the ban after their own test flights through the ash clouds showed zero damage to the airplanes. A total of 102,000 flights around the world were canceled during the no-fly time.

On Wednesday, 75 percent of all scheduled flights were estimated to have taken off. Passengers who held tickets were allowed to fly as scheduled, while remaining seats were allocated to some of the tens of thousands of stranded passengers across Europe.

Since Eyjafjallajokull’s volcanic activity seems to have calmed down, scientists are now monitoring the nearby Katla volcano. Volcanologists have noted that the ash emitting from Eyjafjallajokull is slowing, but there seems to be an increase in the severity of the tremors from underneath the volcano. Scientists are speculating that there may be activity inside the volcano or underneath the tectonic plate that they are not aware of, which is making them watch nearby Katla more closely.

Jasper Fakkert is the Editor-in-chief of the U.S. editions of The Epoch Times. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication Science and a Master's degree in Journalism. Twitter: @JasperFakkert
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