A plume of ash from an erupting Icelandic volcano headed for Britain today, forcing flight cancellations and a change in US President Barack Obama’s travel plans.
The eruption of Grimsvoetn has raised concerns over a repeat of last year’s travel chaos sparked by the eruption of another Icelandic volcano which led to the biggest shutdown of European airspace since World War II.
“The low-level winds are… blowing strongly towards the UK,” said Peitur Arason of the Icelandic Meteorological Office, as British air traffic control operator NATS said volcanic ash was expected to reach Scottish airspace by early today. Obama left Ireland for Britain last night, one day ahead of schedule because of fears that the ash cloud could affect travel today. The Irish visit was the first stop on a six-day European tour.
The change to Obama’s plans came shortly after a Scottish airline announced it was axing a handful of flights early today. Glasgow-based regional airline Loganair, which serves mainly Scottish destinations, said it had axed 36 services.
Flagship carrier British Airways, Dutch airline KLM, Irish carrier Aer Lingus and budget airline Easyjet also suspended flights late last night destined for northern Britain.
Two days into its most powerful eruption in over a century, monitors said ash particles from the Grimsvoetn volcano had been scattered across much of Iceland, forcing the country to close its airspace Sunday.
But winds shifted and began pushing the ash to the south, allowing the North Atlantic island nation to reopen all of its four airports by last night.
However, Hjordis Gudmundsdottir, a spokeswoman for Iceland’s airport authority Isavia, pointed out that “with a volcano still erupting one can only imagine the possibilities of the airport being shut again. Any sort of predictions are impossible.”
During last year’s eruption of the neighbouring Eyjafjoell volcano, more than 100,000 flights were cancelled and eight million passengers stranded, dealing a harsh blow to the airline industry, particularly in Europe.
The threat of a repeat sent airline shares across the continent tumbling Monday, with German Lufthansa, Air France-KLM, British Airways and Scandinavian airline SAS all seeing falls of around three to four percent.
How far the ash travels will depend on the strength of the winds and the intensity of the eruption, experts agree, pointing out that historically Grimsvoetn eruptions have tended to have very brief explosive stages, with the intensity usually subsiding significantly within a few days.
However Gudmundsson pointed out, “This is a much bigger eruption than the recent ones at this volcano,” which is Iceland’s most active – having erupted nine times between 1922 and 2004.
In fact, it is the most powerful eruption in more than a century from the volcano – located at the heart of the country’s biggest glacier, Vatnajoekull in southeastern Iceland – with its plume initially reaching a height of 20 kilometres.
Yesterday, the plume stood at around 10 kilometres, slightly above the peak of last year’s eruption ash column from Eyjafjoell.
