Airlines have appealed to passengers to give up their seats to stranded travelers, as carriers across Europe attempted to clear a backlog of thousands of tourists grounded by the ash cloud spewed from Iceland’s volcano.
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic appealed on Saturday for passengers booked on long-haul flights next week to consider giving up their seat to make way for travelers still stuck following flight disruptions.
A week of airspace closures caused by ash clouds gusting from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano caused the worst breakdown in civil aviation in Europe since World War II.
More than 100,000 flights were canceled and airlines are on track to lose more than US$2 billion.
“It’s a very difficult situation and we’ve had to deal with a lot of complexity, aircraft stuck in different parts of the world, crew stuck in different parts of the world,” British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh said.
Flight authorities in Europe say the majority of the continent is now free of volcanic ash, and most airline services are operating as normal. Several carriers said they are adding extra flights to help the stranded return home.
Iceland’s civil protection agency said Eyjafjallajokull was still spewing ash, but that the plume was now about 3km high — not large enough to reach jet streams.
Winds are now gusting from the south east — away from Europe, said Olof Baldursdottir of the civil protection agency.
Most airports in Iceland — including Keflavik International Airport and Reykjavik International Airport — were closed.
At London’s Gatwick airport — the city’s second busiest hub — Daniel Starks, a 39-year-old farmer, said he was one of 200 tourists stuck on the Spanish island of Tenerife for an extra five days as a result of the disruptions.
“There’s a lot still out there that can’t get back,” he said.
The French Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that about 10,000 French travelers remained stranded — about half the number estimated on Friday, including 60 people stuck in Nepal.
France has made 1 million euros (US$1.3 million) available in aid to French travelers to help cover expenses due to ash-related delays.
A spokesman for Germany’s Deutsche Lufthansa AG said only a few passengers were still stranded abroad.
But Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson has labeled as unnecessary the Europe-wide ban on flights prompted by concerns the volcanic ash could cause problems with airliner engines.
“A blanket ban of the whole of Europe was not the right decision,” Branson said. “Planes have to put up with sandstorms in Africa, the engines are designed to put up with a lot more than existed.”
He said Virgin engineers had insisted that there “were plenty of corridors through which the airlines could have flown.”
Branson said his airline lost £50 million (US$77 million).
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has defended the decision to close European airspace, insisting it was correct to prioritize passenger safety.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique