In April 2010, Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted, creating a massive ash cloud over Europe that forced airports to close and caused weeks of flight cancellations and delays. Now, just over a year later, another Icelandic volcano, the Grimsvötn volcano, has erupted, creating yet another European ash cloud that already is forcing mass flight cancellations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia, according to media reports.
As a result of the volcanic eruption, which happened on Saturday, approximately 500 flights were cancelled today from the approximately 29,000 that would have been expected across Europe, according to Eurocontrol, Europe's air traffic control organization.
So far, cancellations have been mostly in the United Kingdom; however, the ash cloud may impact parts of Denmark, southern Norway and southwest Sweden by tomorrow.
Although 500 cancelled flights is a significant number, "the actual impact on flights is expected to be relatively low," Eurocontrol said in a statement.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) also expects the impact on flights to be low. Thanks to new best practices implemented after last year's volcanic eruption, it said blanket airspace closures are unlikely — although a lack of coordination among European states still could hurt air travel.
"Airlines and their customers need certainty," said IATA Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani. "The process is working much more effectively and we have avoided the blanket airspace closures that brought much of the world to a standstill last year. But there is still no formal obligation for a unified and coordinated response. European Transport Ministers should formally agree their determination to avoid a repeat of the 2010 chaos by embracing a common process based on airline safety risk assessments for determining whether and when it is safe to fly. And Europe must urgently follow up on its promise from last year to accelerate the Single European Sky and ensure that safe airspace remains open for business."
IATA estimates that the mismanagement of the 2010 volcanic ash crisis cost airlines $1.8 billion in lost revenues and cost the global economy as a whole $5 billion. In the United States, meanwhile, cancelled flights from Europe cost the U.S. economy over $650 million in direct travel spending and $90 million in tax receipts, according to the U.S. Travel Association.