Recent Icelandic Volcanic Eruption Shuts down UK Airspace

[Highkeas]

................Be careful also with this $200m stuff : it's just lost revenue, not money out of the door. When you don't fly, your costs also fall considerably.

I expect that the $200 million figure may be much larger when all affected airlines are included - the major cost avoidance is fuel but airlines still pay employee wages & benefits, aircraft lease/acquisition costs, and other fixed costs. If the shutdown continues I'm sure you will see lay-offs.

[HalcyonDays]

I expect that the $200 million figure may be much larger when all affected airlines are included - the major cost avoidance is fuel but airlines still pay employee wages & benefits, aircraft lease/acquisition costs, and other fixed costs. If the shutdown continues I'm sure you will see lay-offs.

For sure, it is a financial disaster for the airlines, probably worse than 9/11. I merely wanted to point to something the media do all the time when there are interruptions, eg. during strikes as well. They say such and such an airline has lost $xx million dollars due to the strike, when they really refer to loss of revenue, though the strong implication of this message is that the money is actually 'lost'.

At some point, if this goes on another 7-10 days, someone is going to have walk the cat back and find a diplomatic formula whereby at least some limited flight operations will have to resume. I don't believe this shutdown is an over-reaction, but the ICAO and other protocols mandating airspace 'shutdowns' certainly did not envisage anything this extensive. Last Wednesday night it probably didn't seem a big deal to suspend flights for 6-12 hours, which is what they did then.

[Cargo Runner]

Is anyone aware that KL and LH are testing 737's around Europe to see if there is any effect to the engines of those 2 aircraft?

KLM705
•Callsign: KLM705
•Flightnr:
•Reg: PH-BGB
•Hex: 484559
•Model: Boeing 737-8K2 (B73
•Airline: KLM
•Lat: 53.00931
•Lon: 4.45824
•Alt: 32250feet (9830 m)
•Ground speed: 411 knots
(761 km/h / 473 mph)
•Track: 12°
•Radar: EHAM

This is current info as of 18.14 Z

[WILCO737]

Is anyone aware that KL and LH are testing 737's around Europe to see if there is any effect to the engines of those 2 aircraft?

KLM705
•Callsign: KLM705
•Flightnr:
•Reg: PH-BGB
•Hex: 484559
•Model: Boeing 737-8K2 (B73
•Airline: KLM
•Lat: 53.00931
•Lon: 4.45824
•Alt: 32250feet (9830 m)
•Ground speed: 411 knots
(761 km/h / 473 mph)
•Track: 12°
•Radar: EHAM

This is current info as of 18.14 Z

"www.tagesschau.de/inland/luftraum114.html"
In German only, but it says that 744s and 340 are flying from MUC to FRA in low altitude. They are positioning flights without passengers.
A total of 10 airplanes.
One airplane was testing the air and no damage was found on the airplane after it landed safely.

[Cargo Runner]

On finals 18.56 Z

KLM705

• Callsign: KLM705
• Flightnr:
• Reg: PH-BGB
• Hex: 484559
• Model: Boeing 737-8K2 (B73
• Airline: KLM
• Lat: 52.28198
• Lon: 4.71784
• Alt: 175feet (53 m)
• Ground speed: 130 knots
  (241 km/h / 150 mph)
• Track: 60°
• Radar: NET2

[AVION1]

UPS and FEDEX are not shipping anything from or to Europe..!!....my customers are going to kill me..!!

[DAL767-400ER]

@DAL: do you mean the four-letter-gazette what behaves as the central information organ responsible for all matters of life....?

Yup, that would be the one.

"www.tagesschau.de/inland/luftraum114.html"
In German only, but it says that 744s and 340 are flying from MUC to FRA in low altitude. They are positioning flights without passengers.
A total of 10 airplanes.
One airplane was testing the air and no damage was found on the airplane after it landed safely.

The spokesperson for LH also said in a interview that they saw this as way that the respective authorities need to take a look at the actual ongoings instead of strictly following the EU rulebook when closing the entire airspace. Doubt anyone in charge will even acknowledge the success of the trial flights, but at least LH is doing something.

[Highkeas]

Now I am officially "stucked" as well I received the information that Frankfurt airport won't open until 00:00Z tonight, so in roughly 15 hours from now. But this is not 100%...
It is all pretty bad apparently. I don't want to fly through the ashcloud. Let's hope the situation gets better soon!

I've been looking at options for my wife to travel back from UK to USA. The Queen Mary is fully booked for next Thursday. Looks like one option is to take train from london to Madrid then fly AA to Dallas.

The weather charts through next week predict changes in upper level wind direction but perhaps not enough to divert the ash plume to a more Northerly direction.

Darn - where's the bad weather (lows) when you need it?

[randall johnson]

EK 215 DUB-LAX 77L had to make a fuel stop it appears in YYZ! Strange! It came yesterday and passed ANC I believe on the way in. It is currently pushing on to LAX with a significant total flight time.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAE215

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAE215/history/20100417/0536Z/OMDB/CYYZ

SU 321 taking the Polar route into LAX again today. I see no others going or coming. What an amazing aircraft the 763 is!

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL321

We have G-YMMR stranded here at LAS on a pad since 4/14!!

Amazing how this has affected aviation!

[Myndee]

UPS and FEDEX are not shipping anything from or to Europe..!!....my customers are going to kill me..!!

Crap. Just ordered a book that is to be shipped from London. Guess I will be waiting a while!

[Myndee]

I also guess this is why there is a Lufthansa A340 parked just back from the gate at DFW. It was at the gate two days ago...and I have never seen it here this long at one time.

[SYDCBRWOD]

BBC world service had an expert on yesterday who mentioned that each time this smaller volcano has gone off in the past (the one with the unpronouncable name) it has set off a neighbouring much larger volcano. The fun may continue...

[AVION1]

Crap. Just ordered a book that is to be shipped from London. Guess I will be waiting a while!

I used to work for DHL, and I remember they have some "emergency" HUBs just in case of Hurricanes, etc...what they do is to ship GROUND everything, including next day air, to the nearest, operative HUB and they fly from there.
In this case, I imagine FEDEX/UPS/DHL/TNT, etc. will ship ground all the way to Spain or Portugal and fly from there...!

[HalcyonDays]

Regarding the parcel/packet companies like FedEx and UPS, I can tell you that they have started to truck stuff down from northern Europe to Spain for onward flights to the US and elsewhere, so while they will take longer, they are at least on the move.

[canair67]

Is anyone aware that KL and LH are testing 737's around Europe to see if there is any effect to the engines of those 2 aircraft?

KLM705
•Callsign: KLM705
•Flightnr:
•Reg: PH-BGB
•Hex: 484559
•Model: Boeing 737-8K2 (B73
•Airline: KLM
•Lat: 53.00931
•Lon: 4.45824
•Alt: 32250feet (9830 m)
•Ground speed: 411 knots
(761 km/h / 473 mph)
•Track: 12°
•Radar: EHAM

This is current info as of 18.14 Z

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