Air France, Lufthansa Press for Airspace Re-Opening

Air France, Lufthansa Press for Airspace Re-Opening

April 19 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Air France- KLM Group and industry groups pressed European governments to loosen the unprecedented closing of the region’s airspace from last week’s Icelandic volcanic eruption as losses from the grounding of aircraft pile up.

Lufthansa and Air France’s KLM unit reported successful testing of flights without passengers during the weekend, and Air France said an inspection of an Airbus A320 flown yesterday from Paris to Toulouse showed “no anomalies.” The Association of European Airlines, which represents 36 carriers, said it wants an “immediate” assessment of the airspace restrictions.

“We’re appealing to the government day and night to get an easing of the ban, but frankly there’s not much more we can do but keep knocking on the door,” Andreas Bartels, a spokesman for Cologne, Germany-based Lufthansa, said in a telephone interview. “We’re an airline and we want to fly.”

As many as 63,000 flights have been canceled after the April 14 eruption at the Eyjafjallajökull volcano spewed dust across Europe’s airspace, causing airports from Dublin to Moscow to shutter. The cloud may reach the coast of Newfoundland later today, the U.K. Met office predicted.

Lost Revenue

Lost revenue from the airspace restriction is rising to as much as $300 million a day for airlines, according to an estimate by the International Air Transport Association. IATA estimates that it will take as long as 6 days for air traffic to get back to normal once a ban ends, as carriers need to work through a backlog of stranded passengers and reposition their fleet.

British Airways Plc, with daily revenue of about 24 million pounds ($37 million), has canceled all flights to and from London through tomorrow. Chief Executive Officer Willie Walsh was on a test flight yesterday from Heathrow to Cardiff that encountered “no difficulties,” the carrier said.

Airline stocks, including British Airways, Lufthansa, and Ryanair Holdings Plc, slumped. British Airways dropped as much as 6.6 percent in London trading, while Lufthansa slumped as much as 5.9 percent in Frankfurt. Ryanair fell as much as 6.6 percent.

Spain, holder of the European Union presidency, called a video conference among transport ministers today to discuss emergency plans. Volcanic ash can cause jet engines to fail by melting and then congealing in the turbines.

‘Risk Free’

While Brussels-based Eurocontrol, which oversees Europe’s flight paths, predicts as much as half of Europe’s airspace may be “risk free” today, U.K. Transport Minister Andrew Adonis said in televised comments yesterday that flights across northern Europe won’t be safe in the next 24 hours, citing advice given by the country’s Met Office.

KLM operated 10 test flights with only a crew over the weekend and concluded that the quality of the atmosphere is “in order.” Air France said its engineers found no visual impact during a flight from Paris to Toulouse and no problems with the jet afterwards. Lufthansa sent 10 aircraft from Munich to Frankfurt to reposition its fleet on April 17.

“With 313 airports paralyzed at the moment, the impact is already worse than 9/11,” Olivier Jankovec, director general at Airports Council International, said in a statement. “While safety remains a non-negotiable priority, it is not incompatible with our legitimate request to reconsider the present restrictions.”

‘Worse Than 9/11’

The disruption to European air traffic caused by the cloud of volcanic ash is “unsustainable,” Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas told a briefing in Brussels yesterday. The Commission will set up a group to assess the impact of the ash cloud on the economy and European travel.

A Eurocontrol spokesman didn’t answer calls for comment.

German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer expects restrictions over the country’s airspace to be maintained for “the coming days,” he told the Bild newspaper in an interview published today.

French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, speaking to reporters yesterday, said he doesn’t expect a complete reopening of the European airspace “from one day to the next.”

France’s airspace in the north and east, which includes the airports of Paris and Lyon, will remain closed until at least the morning of April 20. Civil aviation authorities reopened the airspace over the southwest, allowing Air France to fly seven long-haul flights from Toulouse today.

Extended Ban

Germany’s DFS flight safety authority shut all of the country’s airports by 10 p.m. yesterday after easing a ban earlier on hubs including Berlin and Frankfurt. Airspace closure will remain until at least 8 p.m.

The Netherlands extended the closure of its airspace until 8 p.m. The U.K. remains restricted until at least 1 a.m., flight-control authority National Air Traffic Services said.

“Conditions around the movement of the layers of the volcanic ash cloud over the U.K. remain dynamic,” NATS said in a statement.

Oslo’s Gardermoen airport opened its airspace for domestic and international flights again this morning. Sweden re-opened the area north of Soderhamn, including Kiruna airport. Airspace in northern Spain was shut.

“We hope to receive permission as soon as possible after that to start up our operations and to transport our passengers to their destinations,” KLM Chief Executive Officer Peter Hartman said in a statement.

Asia Affected

Airlines in the Asia-Pacific region canceled most Europe- bound flights. Qantas Airways Ltd. axed services to European destinations through tomorrow. The shutdown is costing the Australian carrier as much as A$1.5 million ($1.4 million) a day, according to David Epstein, a spokesman.

Thai Airways International Pcl is losing 100 million baht ($3.1 million) a day from the closure, President Piyasvasti Amranand said in a Bloomberg TV interview today.

Singapore Airlines Ltd., Air China Ltd., Japan Airlines Corp., All Nippon Airways Co., Korean Air Lines Co. and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. have also canceled some flights to Europe.

United Parcel Service Inc., the world’s largest package- delivery firm, began trucking items from Asia through Istanbul and into Europe. The company made a flight from Dubai to Istanbul yesterday, then put those goods on trucks bound for Europe, according to spokesman Norman Black. UPS’s air hub in Cologne, Germany has been closed since April 16.

Ongoing Impact

Haraldur Eiriksson, a meteorologist at the Icelandic meteorological office, predicts little change in the ash pattern in Europe at least through April 23.

“This could have an ongoing impact on European air travel,” he said. “The forecast hasn’t changed, although the height the volcano is spewing the ash into has decreased from 5 to 6 kilometers to less than 3 kilometers and now it can’t be seen on our radars.”

Volcanic eruptions may continue for months and curtail European air traffic, said Sigrun Hreinsdottir, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. “It could erupt, pause for a few weeks, and then possibly erupt again.”

The last eruption of the 1,666-meter (5,466-foot) Eyjafjallajökull in December 1821 continued until January 1823. The current blast has sent ash as high as 7 kilometers (4.5 miles), according to Gudrun Larsen, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland. The magma had to pierce 200 meters of ice before reaching the air, she said.

Open-Ended?

“We really don’t know if this eruption is going to last as long as the previous one, but we can’t say it’s not a possibility,” Larsen said by telephone.

The volcanic ash cloud also led world leaders, including Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to cancel plans to attend yesterday’s funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, killed with 95 others in an April 10 plane crash.

The U.S.-based Air Transport Association said yesterday that 310 non-stop flights scheduled between the U.S. and Europe, or 92 percent of the total for the day, were canceled.

Delta Air Lines Inc., the world’s largest carrier, scrapped 97 flights yesterday to and from Europe, spokesman Anthony Black said. A further 49 flights have been grounded for today. AMR Corp.’s American Airlines canceled 60 flights to and from Europe.

The eruption began on March 20 with a lava flow on the eastern flank of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, according to the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland. After a lull, it resumed early on April 14, directly under the icecap that covers most of the mountain.

source: bloomberg.com