- Title: RUSSIA: Airlines in Russia cancel 130 flights to Europe due to volcano eruption
- Date: 17th April 2010
- Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (APRIL 16, 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF SHEREMETYEVO AIRPORT PEOPLE STANDING LOOKING AT FLIGHT DEPARTURE BOARD DEPARTURE BOARD READING DELAYED FLIGHTS TO EUROPEAN CITIES DEPARTURE BOARD READING CANCELLED DEPARTURE BOARD READING CITIES AND FLIGHT NUMBERS PEOPLE STANDING NEAR 'AIR FRANCE' AIRLINES REPRESENTATIVES SIGN READING 'AIR FRANCE' ANN
- Embargoed: 2nd May 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Travel / Tourism,Transport
- Reuters ID: LVAAUITVE8QY3T9GCUT9XBO9XMXY
- Story Text: Russia's biggest airlines Aeroflot and other companies have cancelled 130 Europe-bound flights after North European countries closed their airspace due to eruption of a volcano in Iceland, including flights to London, Paris, Prague, Munich, Warsaw and other European cities.
The European air safety organization said the disruption, the biggest seen in the region, could last another two days and a leading volcano expert said the ash could present intermittent problems to air traffic for 6 months if the eruption continued.
The volcano began erupting on Wednesday for the second time in a month from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier. It hurled a plume of ash six to 11 kilometres (3.8 to 7 miles) into the atmosphere, and this spread south east overnight French airports across northern France, including Paris, have been closed since Thursday, leaving travellers to the city of lights stranded.
"The situation is that we can not fly out. We bought a tour to France for the first time and ended up in this situation and no one can tell us what to do next," said Irina, who was due to fly to Paris for the first time in her life.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was forced to cancel a trip to Russia's Arctic town of Murmansk on Thursday.
Brussels, Amsterdam and Geneva airports said they had cancelled a large number of flights and Eurocontrol spokesman saying the problem could persist for a further 48 hours.
"What kind of situation? It's a natural disaster, what can we do? The flight has been cancelled. We were supposed to fly to Prague at 17:35 and the flight was cancelled. For now we don't know, everything is up in the air. The flight is delayed for 48 hours, who knows what will happen," said Your, who was on his way to Prague.
Travellers wanting to use other means of transportation may experience delays as well due to sudden demand by a large amount of people.
"There will be problems buying a train ticket, I imagine, because all the passengers from cancelled flights went to the train stations," said Andrei who won a time limited vacation in Prague but now has no way of using it.
In 1982 a British Airways jumbo jet lost power in all its engines when it flew into an ash cloud over Indonesia, gliding toward the ground before it was able to restart its engines.
The incident prompted the aviation industry to rethink the way it prepared for ash clouds, resulting in international contingency plans activated on Thursday.
Others are taking advantage of the situation by offering car rides from Moscow to any location in Europe for 1,000 Euro ($1,350) not including gas.
"When such situations occur, there are opportunities and wants, why not earn some money? I think that for a person who extremely wants to get somewhere for business or personal reasons this is totally reasonable," said Valery while holding a sign with hopes to recruit passengers.
Eurocontrol said the they expected only 11,000 flights to operate instead of the usual 28,000 through out Europe on Friday. The delays are expected to continue into Saturday as the ash cloud moves south and east.
Scientists said the ash itself dose not pose any health threat because it is at such a high altitude. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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