I’m sitting here watching Sky news, it looks like the volcano in Iceland has had some sort of large eruption (still dark there I think). Flights all over the UK, Norway and Northern Sweden have been canceled, well over 100 at both Heathrow and Gatwick alone. Nobody is reporting ash on the ground in the UK, the cloud is at altitude.
Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Belfast airports closed. Manchester is open but no flights until 1300 local at the earliest.
Now reporting the eruption was bigger than thought.
All UK airports will be closed, London airports starting at 1100 or 1130 LT depending on who you listen to.
John in Saudi
pprune.org/rumours-news/4121 … fic-6.html Lots of European Airspace shut down, many USA to UK flights turned back and returned to point of departure.
Check out Heathrow Airport’s departure list.
France and Denmark are saying they may close later.
Its empty above the skys of England
UK, Danish and Swedish airspace presently closed to all air traffic, more EU areas preparing for closure later today.
Will the volcano be subjected to a carbon tax?
this one made it out today
It better be!
Send the bill to God.
They departed 4 hours before the closure.
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flightaware.com/live/airport/EGLL
flightaware.com/news/article/Vol … Europe/132
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Oh wow… All the way back to Bush…
All UK airspace closed
All Dutch airspace closed
All Belgian airspace closed
All Swedish, Norwegian and Danish airspace closed.
Most of Northern France closed down.
Paris CDG and Orly will (reportedly) close at 2100Z
24 other French airports already closed.
Eurocontrol are talking about disruptions for at least 48 hrs.
Damn! this is serious.
There are two very good (normally) European live flight tracker websites and both are constantly crashing due to oversubscribing. Normally at this time of day the Northern European skies are heavily crowded, but the skies are virtually deserted. Germany particularly Frankfurt and Dusseldorf look to be taking the brunt of the long haul diversions with nowhere else left to go…
pp
Reminds me of British Airways Flight 9.
Volcano photos from boston.com
. . . except then the Indonesian authorities didn’t close the route despite an earlier flight encountering the cloud: bom.gov.au/info/vaac/galunggung.shtml
Great link, Rob.
The morning update brought to you by the Iceland charcoal company.
Changes and updates since last night:
Frankfurt is closed.
Polish airspace except Krakow is closed.
UK will remain closed until this evening although there is a possibility that several airports in Scotland and Belfast may open later today.
Sweden is gradually opening as the cloud moves south.
Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway and much of Germany and France closed.
Reykjavik and Keflavik open.
Supposedly a small corridor in the ash cloud has opened over Scotland leading to the west. UK NATS has told airlines wanting to take advantage of it they can. So far one airline had an airplane and crew in place, Air Transat 325 will operate from Glasgow to Toronto this morning. All this from Sky News so I’m not sure the flight is correct.
As I write this there is no updated flight plan for today on the flights page although it is shown on the airports scheduled departures list. Scheduled at 1135 UTC from EGPF to CYYZ.
flightaware.com/live/flight/TSC325
On another note a flight from Bangladesh to Heathrow was diverted to Brussels yesterday. Several hundred passengers only have visas for the UK so they are stuck in the transit lounge. They won’t even let them go to the train to get to London.