Ash cloud chaos redux

Ash cloud chaos redux    A new ash cloud emanating from a volcano in Iceland on Tuesday threatened to throw European air networks into chaos again, though signs early Wednesday pointed to an easing of eruptions.
   On Tuesday more than 500 flights, mostly concentrated in the United Kingdom and northern Europe, were canceled due to high concentrations of ash from the Grimsvotn volcano, which erupted Saturday, with migrating ash reaching Europe late Monday.
   It's brought back uneasy memories of the major disruption of the Eyjafjallaj'kull volcano last April, when vast parts of European airspace were closed for up to a week, costing the air industry billions of dollars each day. For air freight shippers, rates spiked on some routes to Europe for weeks as forwarders and airlines cleared the weeklong backlog.
   The question this year is whether the industry is better equipped to handle flight disruptions. Some reports suggest the ash from Grimsvotn is denser than from Eyjafjallaj'kull, while others suggest the impact of this eruption will be felt far less than that from a year ago, with eruptions easing in intensity day by day.
   The International Air Transport Association on Tuesday praised EU air traffic control associations for not entirely shutting down airspace as they had last year.

Bisignani

   'Work over the last year has put in place a European crisis coordination structure that is facilitating a much more effective management of this ash crisis at a working level,' IATA Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said in a statement. But 'the potential for a patchwork of inconsistent state decisions on airspace management still exists because there is a major disconnect between the improved process and state decisions on airspace availability.'
   Germany, for example, shut its airspace Tuesday despite maps showing little ash dispersal there. Flights in the United Kingdom — where Scotland was particularly affected — were to resume Wednesday, the BBC reported.