Ash-hit Europe on track to normal, sporadic disruptions to air travel likely to occur

An airplane of British Airways is about to land at the Heathrow Airport in London, capital of Britain, April 21, 2010.


Flights and life are returning to normal in Europe as Iceland's Eyjafjjoell volcano has reined in her temper, though sporadic disruptions to air travel are expected to occur due to the drifting volcanic ash.

Flights in Europe have returned to normal, one week after the volcanic eruption caused the continent to almost completely shut down its airspace, the European air safety coordination body Eurocontrol said on Friday.

"At the current time, almost all European airspace is available, with the exception of part of northern Scotland," Eurocontrol said in a statement. It expected 29,000 flights to take place on Friday, the normal number.

On the same day, Finnish Civil Aviation Administration said in a statement that all airspace restrictions had been removed in Finland and all airports across the country had been opened for air traffic and were operating normally.

The statement also noted that no new flight restrictions were to be expected, based on the latest forecast on volcanic ash cloud movements on Friday morning.

However, the situation remains unstable. The airspace in southern Finland, southern Norway, northern Scotland and western Sweden had to be closed again Thursday, as a change in the wind direction brought volcanic ash from Iceland back into Scandinavian skies.



Iceland was closing its airspace on the weekend since the wind started to blow ash eastwards, forcing Reykjavik' Keflavik airport to be closed on Friday, for the first time in more than a month.

More than 100,000 flights had been canceled since April 14 when European countries shut down their airspace following the Icelandic volcanic eruption, stranding millions of passengers.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) put the overall cost to the airline industry at 1.7 billion U.S. dollars.

Besides inflicting a huge cost to European airlines, the ash cloud's potential impact on the other sectors of the economy is also significant.

PricewaterhouseCoopers said a week of disruption could destroy 0.025-0.05 percent of annual British gross domestic product. The same could be true of other European countries, though Germany said the impact on its economy would be limited.

During the disruption, some economic activities simply moved from one sector to another. Road and rail transport in many areas increased at the expense of air travel, it argued.

The disruption could also prompt some companies to make fresh investments to strengthen distribution and logistics system, which might actually be positive for economic growth.