TRANSPORT MINISTERS:EU TRANSPORT ministers reached a deal last night to gradually reopen European airspace five days after the eruption of an Icelandic volcano that has wrought havoc on air services and disrupted millions of passengers.
As the European authorities brushed aside criticism from the airline sector over the extent of the shutdown and their speed in trying to reverse it, the ministers moved to divide Europe’s airspace into open, closed and restricted zones.
With roughly 70 per cent of flights in European airspace cancelled yesterday, the relaxation of the restrictions marks an effort to start bringing the crisis to heel.
Up to 45 per cent of flights may run as scheduled today and up to 60 per cent may run tomorrow, aviation body Eurocontrol said.
While airlines’ losses were estimated to be running at a total of some €143 million per day, the International Air Transport Association claimed yesterday that the response of aviation authorities was nothing more than a “European embarrassment”.
With airlines already pushing in private for exceptional state aid to help them through the crisis, the European authorities have been under pressure for days to ease flight restrictions.
However, Eurocontrol and EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas both defended the response to the crisis.
“In the interests of safety, this is probably the price we have to be prepared to pay,” said Bo Redeborn, a Eurocontrol director.
Mr Redeborn acknowledged, however, that the impact of the situation in terms of air traffic in Europe was “worse” than the 9/11 attacks on the US. While raising the prospect that air services could start returning to normal from tomorrow night if a reported reduction in volcanic activity reported yesterday was to continue, he stressed that the situation remained very dynamic.
Saying most of the test flights that led regulators to relax the shutdown did not take place until Sunday, Mr Kallas said “we should see progressively more planes start to fly” from this morning.
“The first of these [no fly] zones is located in the central nucleus of the emissions and will also maintain a full restriction of operations, given that it is impossible to guarantee its safety,” said the ministers.
This no fly zone is identifiable from satellite imagery and includes a “buffer” zone of around 120km.
It will be for member states to determine whether their airspace falls within the restricted zone. This area is “one which will in principle not impede air traffic operations being carried out, even though there are still amounts of ash”, the ministers said.
“The third zone is not affected by the ash, resulting in no restrictions of any type to the operations.”
The zones will be redrawn every six hours in line with weather forecasts and data from the eruption under the Eyjafjallajökull glacier.
The European Parliament has suspended voting at its monthly plenary session in Strasbourg, a move that officials said was without precedent.
MEPs were due to vote on a negotiating mandate for the EU Commission in talks on a new deal to transfer European banking data to US intelligence agencies.
