Five hundred scheduled flights were expected to be canceled Tuesday due to clouds of volcanic ash drifting toward the Continent, Europe's air-traffic management agency said, amid fears that the disruption could spread.
Weather forecasters at the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in London repeated warnings that there was a risk that some ash clouds may reach parts of northern Europe in the next 48 hours. Iceland, Greenland and Scotland already are affected, and parts of Scandinavia are under threat.
Dublin, Ireland-based Ryanair Holdings PLC (RYA.DB), a stern critic of the handling of last year's ash cloud crisis, challenged the restrictions, calling on air-traffic controllers to reopen airspace over Scotland after it operated a one-hour verification flight up to 41,000 feet in Scottish airspace and deemed conditions safe.
"There was no visible volcanic ash cloud or any other presence of volcanic ash and the post-flight inspection revealed no evidence of volcanic ash on the airframe, wings or engines," it said in a statement.
"The absence of any volcanic ash in the atmosphere supports Ryanair's stated view that there is no safety threat to aircraft in this mythical 'red zone,' which is another misguided invention by the U.K. Met Office and the [Civil Aviation Authority]," it added. The Met Office is one of nine Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers world-wide and the CAA is the U.K.'s specialist aviation regulator.
A spokesman for the CAA rejected Ryanair's remarks. "Their claim that they flew through high-density ash isn't accurate," he said. The route of the Ryanair flight had been retraced on radar, showing that it didn't enter zones with higher concentrations of ash, he added.
Giovanni Bisignani, head of the International Air Transport Association, which represents some 230 airlines comprising 93% of scheduled international air traffic, criticized the British government for its failure to make available a test aircraft to assess the situation despite collecting GBP3.5 billion a year in air passenger duty.
But a spokeswoman for the Department for Transport said "the U.K. is taking detailed readings to monitor the ash cloud from a number of different instruments including radar and lidar sites, improved satellite data and weather balloons".
"Test aircraft only provide a snapshot in a localized area, whilst the Met Office model looks at the bigger picture, and the accuracy of this model is considered to be high," she said, but added that it was looking to make a specialized test aircraft in future.
Airlines affected by the ash cloud will be keen to resume operations as quickly as it is safe to do so.
Carriers last year lost millions of euros in revenue when clouds of volcanic ash blanketed much of the Continent, forcing the closure of most of Europe's airspace. While they were unable to fly, they forked out millions of euros more to accommodate stranded passengers unable to complete their journeys.
Ratings agency Fitch Ratings said it expected the impact on the finances of the European airlines to be more muted than in 2010 largely because the industry was in better shape.
"The impact of lost revenue per day to the whole industry [estimated last year by the International Air Transport Association] is around EUR150 million in the worst case scenario--that is, assuming the similar level of airspace closure to that of 2010," said Sabrina Ran, associate director in Fitch's corporates team.
"However, the impact is likely to be limited as the agency expects better coordination between European air-traffic control authorities and the commercial airlines would occur this time round to keep any travel disruption to a minimum."
A spokeswoman for Eurocontrol, a Brussels, Belgium-based intergovernmental organization, said that 500 scheduled flights were expected to be canceled Tuesday for safety reasons. Typically, there are around 29,000 flights daily in Europe.
Iceland's Grimsvotn volcano erupted late Saturday, sending ash plumes 17 kilometers into the sky and sparking worries of a repeat of events last year, when the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in April spewed into the atmosphere clouds of ash that drifted over much of Europe. Tens of thousands of flights were canceled and the travel plans of millions were disrupted.
Based on current forecasts, there was a strong possibility that the ash clouds may impact parts of Denmark, southern Norway and southwest Sweden by Wednesday, said Eurocontrol. "However, given the new procedures in place and the predicted movement of the ash cloud over the coming days, the actual impact on flights is expected to be relatively low," it added.
Disruption to some services at Scotland's main international airports in Glasgow and Edinburgh and at airports in northern England was expected to continue until at least 0000 GMT Wednesday, U.K. air-traffic controller Nats said.
British Airways, easyJet PLC (ESYJY, EZJ.LN) and Deutsche Lufthansa AG (LHA.XE) unit British Midland International on Tuesday canceled services to some Scottish airports including Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Transatlantic traffic continued, but journeys were subject to delays of up to half an hour as flights were re-routed to avoid affected areas, said a spokesman for British Airways, which is part of International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (IAG.LN).
Aer Lingus Group PLC (EIL1.DB) said it had consulted its engine manufacturers and made a decision not to fly in Scottish airspace based on meteorological conditions and the forecast concentration levels of ash dust.
