Avoiding disruptions from eruptions

Avoiding disruptions from eruptions    Icelandic aviation authorities and the Association of European Airlines held a conference in mid-September to review how the aviation community handled the Eyjafjallaj'kull volcano eruption last April and identify better response protocols for ash clouds.
   A top Air Transport Association of America official summed up the aviation industry's criticism of European governments, saying they overreacted to the situation by unilaterally closing too much airspace without consulting airline partners.
   'The keys for future success are grounded in communications, coordination, collaborative decision-making, airspace modernization, and recognition of the shared interests of all parties in operating safely and reliably,' said Tom Hendricks, vice president for operations and safety, according to a copy of his speech on the ATA's Web site.
   The Icelandic eruption led to more than 100,000 flight cancellations, which impacted cargo and passengers. Poor communication caused many flights to depart and then turn back. Planned aircraft maintenance and crew training was also thrown off schedule. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates the air traffic-shutdown cost the airline industry $1.8 billion.
   Atlas Air, an all-cargo charter airline that operates the world's largest fleet of 747 freighters, dealt with the situation by eliminating some refueling stops in Frankfurt, Germany, and flying around the ash disturbance to destinations in Afghanistan and elsewhere for commercial and military customers, according to Chief Operating Officer John Dietrich. Refueling stops allow planes to carry less fuel and more cargo.
   There are 500 active volcanoes in the world and an estimated 50 to 60 eruptions per year, although most are not as large as the one in Iceland. Airline officials point out that, despite that activity, never before had such drastic measures been taken to shut down air traffic.
   Last May at the Cargo Network Services conference in Miami, Lufthansa Cargo officials criticized European governments for their handling of the ash cloud. The crisis demonstrated the need for new guidelines on how to deal with future volcanic eruptions, said Andreas Otto, a member of Lufthansa Cargo's executive board in charge of products and sales, at a press conference.
   He acknowledged carriers should have developed scenarios for flying through ash in advance so the industry didn't have to rely on governments to make educated guesses about safety.
   Most governments based their decisions on computer simulations from the International Civil Aviation Organization's research institute in the United Kingdom and didn't measure the ash cloud density on their own, Otto complained.
   Following the mid-May cancellation of 1,000 flights in response to more volcanic activity, IATA strongly called on European governments and air navigation service providers to quickly develop more precise procedures to identify ash contaminated air space and allow more flights.
   'We welcome the operational refinements made by the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in their theoretical model but we are still basically relying on one-dimensional information to make decisions on a four-dimensional problem,' said IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani in a statement. 'The result is the unnecessary closure of airspace. Safety is always our No. 1 priority. But we must make decisions based on facts, not on uncorroborated theoretical models.'
   More than 200,000 flights have operated in European airspace supposedly threatened by ash, but post-flight aircraft and engine inspections have not detected any significant ash presence, he said.
   He praised France, and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom, for supplementing scientific estimates with test flights to allow airspace to remain open.
   'Ultimately the industry needs a decision-making process for ash clouds similar to the one used for all other operational disruptions. Every day airlines make decisions whether to fly or not to fly in various weather conditions. Airlines collate the information available and make informed decisions placing safety first and with full access to all the latest weather reporting. Why should volcanic ash be any different?' he said.
   The U.S. government, which has a lot of experience with volcanic activity, identifies a no-fly zone where ash concentration is the highest. For all other areas, it is the airline's responsibility to decide whether to fly, based on available data sources, IATA said.
   Large U.S. airlines have a strong history of safely operating under volcanic conditions, Hendricks said. The most noteworthy example is Alaska Airlines, which developed detailed safety procedures for navigating around ash clouds because volcano activity is frequent in Washington and Alaska.
   Alaska Airlines' first rule is to never take off, fly or land in ash because it can choke off the engines, according to an April 21 story in the Wall Street Journal. When there is an eruption in the region, it uses computer models to predict the trajectory of volcanic ash and then scrambles off-duty pilots in empty jetliners or private planes to take temperature and wind measurements at various altitudes. The data helps validate satellite projections and computer forecasts.
   Alaska Airlines won't fly unless planes can stay at least 35 miles away from ash. The airline also won't operate at night when pilots can't see or if it isn't sure of the actual winds aloft. Last year when Mount Redoubt erupted, the airline couldn't get its aircraft out of Anchorage early enough and canceled flights and shrink-wrapped planes to keep ash from contaminating instruments and engines, according to the Journal.
   The company also frequently trains its pilots in computer simulators to deal with an ash encounter that knocks out systems.
   An ICAO task force is reviewing ash tolerance thresholds with governments, airlines, manufacturers and the scientific community. Hendricks noted European regulators revised their definition of dangerous flying conditions, initially starting with concentrations 10,000 times less than that estimated to cause catastrophic engine failure, then lowering to 1,000 times less, and finally, creating a third threshold by May 18.
   The European Commission has said it plans to fast track the Single European Sky package as part of new proposals for managing risk from volcanic activity.
   'It would, as the EU has stated, mean a much faster, coordinated response that would ease the disruption to passengers as well as businesses that rely on the speed and predictability of air cargo and help to reduce the substantial losses suffered by businesses,' IATA said in a statement.
   Aviation stakeholders also called for modernization of air traffic management systems to allow more planes to safely fly in congested airspace.