Asian airlines say European flights unaffected by Icelandic ash

Wednesday, 25 May 2011 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

BEIJING/REYKJAVIK (Reuters): Asian airlines were operating flights to Europe as normal on Tuesday but said they were closely monitoring an erupting Icelandic volcano after some European airlines earlier cancelled flights to Britain.

China Southern Airlines operates daily passenger flights to Amsterdam and Paris and said so far its flights have not been affected.

“Everything is normal for the time being, but we are closely watching the situation.

We cancelled flights to Europe for two day last time where there was a volcano explosion,” said Shao Fuqiang, a spokesman with China Southern Airlines.

Other airlines began cancelling flights to Britain late on Monday because of an ash cloud from the Grimsvotn volcano reaching its airspace, although experts expected no repeat of the travel chaos that resulted from an eruption a year ago.

Last year ash from a different Icelandic volcano caused 100,000 flights to be cancelled, stranding 10 million passengers and costing the airline industry an estimated $1.7 billion in lost revenue.

China Eastern Airlines, which operates 10 flights a week to Paris, daily flights to Frankfurt and several flights a week to London, said no flights had been cancelled yet.

Thai Airways also said it was still operating flights to London and other countries in Europe as normal. Britain’s Met Office forecast the plume of ash from the volcano would cover the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland, Scotland and parts of northern England by 0600 GMT on Tuesday.

Worries about the effect of the ash cloud pushed forward US President Barack Obama’s planned departure from Ireland and he arrived on Monday night in Britain to begin a state visit.

Grimsvotn erupted on Saturday and smoke funnelled as high as 20 km into the sky.

The eruption is the volcano’s most powerful since 1873 and stronger than the volcano that caused trouble last year.