Indications emerged yesterday that the ripple effect of a fresh Icelandic volcano ash cloud stretching over Northern Spain and Southern France, leading to the delay and cancellations of hundreds of flights between Europe and North America, may hit Nigerian passengers today.
An official of Lufthansa in Nigeria said there were few delays in its transatlantic flights. This, he said, is expected to start affecting flights to other countries including Nigeria.
The prospects of flights operating today remained grim, with no improvement in sight for trans-Atlantic passengers, and with a plume of low-altitude ash continuing to float eastward over Spain and southern France, according to Associated Press (AP) yesterday.
Flights had to be rerouted north over Greenland or south around Spain to avoid the 1,200-mile (2,000-kilometer)-long cloud stretching from Iceland to northern Spain.
Approximately 600 airliners make the oceanic crossing everyday. Around 40 per cent were rerouted southward and the rest skirted Iceland from the north, the European airspace management agency, Eurocontrol said yesterday.
The disruptions to air traffic did not compare to the five-day closure of European airspace last month, which forced the cancellation of over 100,000 flights, stranded passengers around the world and causing airlines direct losses of more than one billion euros.
In Spain, 19 airports in the north, including the international hub, Barcelona, were closed yesterday.
The country’s airport authority said more than 670 flights had been cancelled by 14:00 (1200 GMT). Likewise, 125 flights in and out of Portugal were cancelled up to noon local time (1100 GMT).
Due to the congestion on the alternate routes, particularly over southern Portugal and Spain where many of the planes were being funnelled, some trans-Atlantic flights were taking significantly longer.
An Air France flight from Boston arrived in Paris yesterday with a delay of more than four hours, Associated Press (AP) reports said.
It also said that Aer Lingus cancelled flights from the United States to Dublin, citing the exceptionally circuitous routes to get around the cloud.
Information posted on Air France website as at 5pm yesterday said “French airspace remains open. Routes for flights going to or coming from North America, Central America and the Caribbean are modified to avoid the volcanic cloud.
Flight times can be a little bit longer than usual. Air France
is closely cooperating with the French Civil Aviation Authority to follow the evolution of the situation in order to anticipate any eventual impacts on its flight’s schedule.”