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British civil aviation authorities ordered the closure of the country's airspace as of noon on Thursday to shield aircraft from a high altitude cloud of ash drifting south and east from an erupting volcano in Iceland. The plume of ash shut down airports and forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights in a wide arc from Ireland to Scandinavia.
The closures left airplanes on the tarmac as the rolling cloud -- made up of minute particles of silicate that can damage airplane engines -- headed from Britain and Scandinavia towards northern France. News reports said Denmark also restricted air travel.
"From midday today until at least 6 p.m., there will be no flights permitted in U.K. controlled airspace other than emergency situations," Britain's National Air Traffic Service said in a statementon its Web site. "This has been applied in accordance with international civil aviation policy."
The move effectively grounded all flights in Britain from 11:00 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time (7:00 a.m. Eastern) and affected an estimated 6,000 flights that use British airspace every day, aviation experts said. Oddly, for travelers, the closure was announced under clear blue skies. Experts had said earlier that the ash may not be visible from the ground but can clog airplane engines.
The impact was likely to be among the most severe in many years, cutting transatlantic links and severing air routes across northern Europe.
At Heathrow's Terminal 4, where flights leave to Houston, New York and Paris among other destinations, all check-in counters were closed. Arrival and departure boards listed all flights as cancelled. News of the impending closure seemed to have reached passengers before the shut-down gand the terminal was all but deserted. Airport staff in yellow slickers handed out fliers offering apologies and saying the closure to the "volcanic dust cloud from Iceland."
Passengers were asked to rebook on the Internet or through travel agents but not at the airport.
The silence of the skies reminded some aviation experts of the days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when transatlantic flights were suspended. Since then, aviation in Britain has seen huge disruptions caused by terrorism alerts and industrial unrest.
Travelers on British Airways are only just recovering from a series of strikes by cabin staff.
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SOURCE: The New York Times
