THE IRISH Aviation Authority says Ireland’s airspace is unlikely to be affected by ash released by Iceland’s Grimsvötn volcano over the coming days.
The authority said it saw no reason why Irish airspace would have to close before tomorrow afternoon and that there was nothing to say that problems would arise beyond that.
The Icelandic Met Office yesterday said the Grimsvötn volcano, which erupted on Saturday, had ceased spewing ash. European air traffic management body Eurocontrol said the ash was unlikely to have “any significant impact on European airspace” today.
Germany was worst affected by the ash cloud yesterday with some 700 flights into airports in the north of the country cancelled. Flights in and out of airports in Scotland and northern England were worst affected on Tuesday.
The Irish Aviation Authority warned that a small number of European destinations may yet be affected and that services in and out of the country could suffer as a result. Ryanair flights between Dublin and Berlin were cancelled yesterday afternoon.
Met Éireann had previously warned that changing weather fronts and northerly winds could have resulted in a greater concentration of particles in Irish airspace today and tomorrow.
Flight schedules at Belfast City, Belfast International and City of Derry airports were returning to normal yesterday, with air traffic controllers saying the air was clear over Northern Ireland. The British met office said there would be “minimal” ash over the UK and Europe over the weekend.
Iceland’s met office yesterday said there were indications that the eruption was ceasing. “There seems to be mainly steam coming from the crater,” meteorologist Hrafn Gudmundsson said.
In Germany, flights in and out of Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck airports were cancelled for six hours yesterday morning while Berlin’s Tegel and Schönefeld airports were closed from 11am-2pm.
Meanwhile, aviation regulators have told Ryanair to “do more homework” after it challenged the reliability of acute safety warnings issued in the wake of the Grimsvötn eruption.
The airline said on Tuesday that it flew an aircraft through a high ash concentration “red zone” in Scottish airspace without any interference, leading it to claim to the risk to flights was “mythical”. However, the European Commission said public statements by industry groups showed there was “widespread support” for new safety procedures from airlines and airports.
British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh also said his company had flown an aircraft into an ash zone. “The simple answer is we found nothing,” he told the BBC.
