Airport shutdowns disrupt UK supply chain

Infratil Ltd said its two airports in the United Kingdom are getting on with maintenance work and staff are taking holidays while the ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano prevents flights from operating.

The Wellington-based infrastructure investment company owns the Glasgow Prestwick Airport in Scotland and Kent International Airport 110km east of London.

When the crisis began last week Glasgow Prestwick handled some British Airways long haul flights which could not make it to London. The airport has one of the longest runways in the UK and is used when large aircraft are diverted from major airports.

Kent Airport handles a lot of freight aircraft and is a key part of the fresh produce supply chain to the UK, which has been disrupted.

"At this stage it is certainly not material from an Infratil point of view and it is probably not overly material for those businesses. But the longer this drags on the harder it gets and the more people will permanently cancel their travel rather than just delay it," said Steve Fitzgerald, chief executive of Infratil Airports.

"There's nothing we can do about a volcanic ash cloud in Europe."

British airports remained closed today and forecasters say that the cloud of ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano could remain over Britain until at least the end of the week.

Shortages of fresh fruit and vegetables have been reported in UK shops.

"We are a key part of that fruit and vegetable supply chain," Mr Fitzgerald said.

Kent Airport handles about 3 million kilograms of fruit and vegetables and flowers a year.

The shutdown has been extended until at least 6am tomorrow but European Union officials say air traffic in Europe could return to half its normal level overnight.

Air New Zealand said its two evening flights leaving Auckland tonight for London via Los Angeles and Hong Kong go no further than their midway points.

Passengers bound for London were advised to not take these flights and instead take a full refund or switch to a later flight without penalty, the airline said.

If passengers did fly, they would need to find and pay for hotels themselves in Hong Kong and Los Angeles where there was little to no accommodation left, it said.

Air New Zealand's flight leaving tomorrow (NZT), from London to Los Angeles and Auckland, remained on schedule pending further updates.

Australian carrier Qantas has cancelled more flights to London, extending its run of cancellations into its sixth day.

The airline said in a statement that it did not know when services would resume, and that the disruptions were costing it about NZ$1.96 million a day.

"Access to UK and European airports will be difficult due to the backlog of flights from around the world."

Qantas said this was likely to continue for some days.

Malaysia Airlines is carrying passengers from Kuala Lumpur to Rome, where airports remain open. Airports in Madrid and Athens are also open.

Major airlines that sent test flights into European air space over the weekend found no damage from volcanic ash.

European Union officials said air traffic could return to half its normal level on Monday (overnight NZT) if the dense cloud begins to dissipate. Germany allowed some flights to resume.

Eighty per cent of European airspace remained closed for a devastating fourth day on Sunday local time, with only 4,000 of the normal 20,000-flight schedule in the air.

"Today it has been, I would say, the worst situation so far," said Brian Flynn, deputy head of operations for Eurocontrol, which supports the air traffic control network across the European Union's 27 states.

The test flights highlighted a lack of consensus on when to reopen the skies.

"It is clear that this is not sustainable. We cannot just wait until this ash cloud dissipates," EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas told reporters at the European capital in Brussels.

KLM Royal Dutch airlines, the national German carrier Lufthansa, Air France and several regional airlines sent up test flights, probing altitudes where the cloud of ash has wafted over Europe since the volcano turned active on Wednesday.

British Airways planned an evening flight over the Atlantic from Heathrow, one of Europe's busiest hubs.

None of the pilots reported problems, and the aircraft underwent detailed inspections for damage to the engines and frame.

"Not the slightest scratch was found" on any of the 10 empty long-haul planes Lufthansa flew Saturday to Frankfurt from Munich, spokesman Wolfgang Weber said. The planes flew at low altitude, between 3,000 and 8,000 metres, under so-called visual flight rules, in which pilots don't have to rely on their instruments.

Steven Verhagen, vice president of the Dutch Airline Pilots Association, said he would not hesitate to fly an aircraft today carrying his own family.

"With the weather we are encountering now - clear blue skies and obviously no dense ash cloud to be seen, in our opinion there is absolutely no reason to worry about resuming flights," said Verhagen, a pilot of Boeing 737s for KLM. "We are asking the authorities to really have a good look at the situation, because 100 per cent safety does not exist."

Civil aviation authorities in each country must decide whether to resume commercial traffic, but the 27-nation EU said if weather forecasts are correct it expected half its flights to operate normally on Monday. While it was still unclear how the dust would affect jet engines, the EU said it was encouraged by promising weather predictions, at least for the next 24 hours.

"Probably tomorrow one half of EU territory will be influenced. This means that half of the flights may be operating," said Diego Lopez Garrido, state secretary for EU affairs for Spain, which holds the rotating EU presidency. He did not provide details about which flights might resume.

Meteorologists warned that the situation above Europe was constantly changing because of varying winds and the continuing, irregular eruptions from the Icelandic volcano. That uncertainty is bumping up against Europe's need to resume flights.

Rognvaldur Olafsson, a spokesman with the Civil Protection Agency in Iceland, said Sunday the eruption is continuing and there are no signs that the ash cloud is thinning or dissipating.

"It's the same as before," he said. "We're watching it closely and monitoring it."

Ash and grit from volcanic eruptions can damage a plane in various ways. The abrasive ash can sandblast a jet's windshield, block fuel nozzles, contaminate the oil system and electronics and plug the tubes that sense air speed. The greatest danger is to the engines, where melted ash can then congeal on the blades and block the normal flow of air.

There are no recorded instances of fatal aircraft crashes involving volcanic ash, though several have suffered damage and some temporarily lost engine power.

- NZPA, AP and NZHERALD STAFF